


Daily Business

by Julieen



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bat Family, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Just daily buisness, at least for the wayne fam, cute everyday life, school work & kidnappings, totally normal gotham life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julieen/pseuds/Julieen
Summary: Their life at night is known, but at day they have to go though life like a normal family. Therefore they need to deal with having to got to work at times, family dinners or kidnappers as well, and they have to do it as the Waynes. These stories follow their daily business. There´s also some humor and some fluff and some attempted murders. The usual.





	1. The party

It had been easy when he was still in the League.

He had teachers come to him and only him, every morning, every evening. They gave him tasks and books, when he was done they gave him more. He never had to deal with the concept of a normal school, and at first that hadn’t changed when he started living with his father.

His new teacher was Alfred, and the butler had been a good teacher. He tried to keep on challenging Damian with his teaching as good as possible. The problem arose when child protective services had had a long phone call with his father about his son’s home schooling and whether or not the butler could give him the proper education. The professionalism with which Damian was taught had been easy for his father to assure, it got harder as the very motivated lady on the other end of the line began questioning Damian´s social skills and whether he needed more contact to others of the same age or not.

Damian had been in the dining room for dinner when the call came. His father had excused himself to leave for his study and Damian followed quickly after eating his plate empty in record time, so he could sneak out after his father. Alfred had silently taken his empty plate and left for the kitchen. Surely the butler was aware of Damian´s plan, he simply didn’t bother to try and stop him though. The call was therefore not important enough that Damian wouldn’t be allowed to spy on the conversation, but still called for enough discretion that Bruce would leave the table to talk. Interesting.

It wasn’t to hard to hear what was said, his father had left the door slightly open. Damian might have only been able to hear his father’s side of the conversation, but he pieced the topic together fast enough and he already resented the idea of visiting a regular school. He had researched into those before, the places that forced you to give up your early hours of the day for six hours five times a week just so you could sit in their special building and learn what they deemed appropriate. And what did they learn? Well, seeing as Damian was only ten years old that would put him into fifth grade, middle school. Establishing a good vocabulary, basic math and algebra and getting to comprehend some `advanced´ texts. He knew what fifth grade might call `advanced´, his father had to realize that Damian would be misplaced in such a school. He had read most of Shakespeare’s work by the time he was four. It only took him so long because he did it mostly in his free time, and in-between all his training he hadn’t had much of that. Damian was completely fine with being schooled by Alfred, thank you very much.

But than it seemed the person on the line started talking about social skills and friends, and Damian´s confidence in never having to visit a place like a school ever plummeted immediately. In his eyes his social skills were fine, but he knew that his father might be thinking differently. Especially since that incident two weeks ago. After Damian had had an especially snappy attitude while out patrolling, his father had called up an old contact that had a child of their own and got Damian an invitation to a dress-up party at a fellow ten-year-old’s birthday. He was told to go out, meet some potential friends an have some fun. To experience being a normal ten-year-old for once. That’s what his father had said, and back then Damian already had some slight suspicions that his father might have been influenced by that How-to-raise-your-child guidebook that Grayson had sent to mock him. “He is definitely taking after his father in the way he isn’t going out for fun. Like ever. I mean not to fight criminals in a spandex costume or just because your public image demands it, I mean going out with peers just to go out.” They all seemed very eager to get Damian some new contacts, but he just couldn’t see the reason why.

His very accurate reasoning as to why it would be fine to stay home didn’t seem to work on Alfred as the butler had pulled out a selection of costumes for Damian to wear to the party. His father had been there as well, he ruled out Damian´s own Robin outfit on the spot. Damian had been the one to refuse the old Robin costume that Grayson and Todd had worn. He didn’t need to run around in scaly underwear, he was very much fine with pants.

Sadly, after ruling out the Robin costumes all that was left were a pair of cat ears, his father claimed Selina Kyle had once given him these, paired with a fluffy black sweater that Alfred had found somewhere in the house. To call this an outfit fit for a costume party had already been sad, but it was still better than the only other that remained. A suit that must have belonged to a young Bruce once, complete with a little bowtie and the polished shoes. Alfred called this costume `the Butler´, but it was quickly thrown out together with the cat outfit. Those were all the options that could be found in the manor at short notice, there weren’t many outfits in Damian´s size. Since the invite to the party had been on short notice and the party was set for the next day, either he would have to find something he could settle for right now or Damian had to seriously cut his time for training and eating tomorrow so he could go buy a costume in some store and still be on time for the party.

Therefore, Damian took matters in his own hands and had Alfred cut him a cape out of some material he could find. With glue and some things that he managed to find in various rooms of the manor Damian build himself a black Batman mask. He paired these two with his fathers’ old suit that Alfred had presented him and tossed the bowtie. Then he called the whole thing a day in front of the mirror as Batman and skittered down into the cave to change into his Robin outfit and go out on patrol.

 

The entire time that his father brought him to the car, Alfred drove him, Alfred rang the bell of the house that absolutely screamed `middle class family´, Damian kept on arguing that they didn’t have to do this. He was perfectly fine staying at home and doing some more homework if Alfred wanted that. And he would do the work really good and thorough, he promised. At last he only had one way left to try, bribe Alfred. That went about as well as he had expected, and the butler left with a `have fun, little dark knight´ as the door opened and he was gently pushed towards the lady that now stood before him. Her looks definitely matched the style that her house was already going for.

“You must be Damian”, she had said. “It is so nice to meet you. That’s a nice costume you are wearing. I am sure my dear Billy will be really happy to see you.”

Reluctantly Damian had taken of his shoes and put them next to all the other pairs that were already there. At least eleven other children had to be here right now and judging from the noise he heard from the supposed living room around the corner he was sure he hadn’t miscounted.

“Here you go Damian, no need to be shy. Billy is the one jumping on the sofa, you can give him your present.” She nudged Damian forward. He wasn’t shy, he had no reason to be. That was no party, no, that was just another mission that he had to get through. Mission objective: make Bruce happy enough, but not to happy. He couldn’t disappoint his father, but he couldn’t make it look like this experiment had been to successful or else he might be prompted to repeat this betrayal, that could not be allowed. So Damian had to approach his target with a fitting friendly but not over the top smile and greet him. Easy. He had taken down supervillains and subdued masses of henchman, he could handle a simple ten-year-old. Or so had he thought.

“It is Batman! Up up and away”, Billy had noticed him. Billy was dressed as Superman. A really crappy version at Superman, if Damian might say so. And knockoff Superman was about to slam body first into Damian. That could not be allowed, with Damian´s strength and training it wasn’t even possible. He was already raising his arms for a counter attack, but then he remembered that it might not be a good idea to grab the birthday boy and slam him face first into the wall. So Damian settled for taking a step to the side and letting gravity do its thing.

From what Damian had learned, kids like this one were likely to cry when they encountered the smallest amount of injury. Weak. Seconds later however Damian discovered that there was a second possible outcome to such a scenario. The kind in which the kid just stood up, ignored his now bleeding nose and stretched his hand towards Damian.

“I am Billy. Present?” His eyes already flickered to the brightly packaged box that Damian held under his arm. If Alfred had left him the choice he would have chosen a discreet packaging paper, simply black for example. But Alfred had taken the one in rainbow colors with dancing tacos and the recurring sentence `Have a Fantas-taco birthday´. Damian was glad to get rid of the present, it didn’t fit with his black Batman persona. At least the present itself was better than the wrapping it came in, Damian had chosen it himself. On his quest to find material for his mask he had stumbled over the book that Grayson had given him as he gave his father the parental guidance book. `The little angry dragon´, an illustrated children’s book. Damian hadn’t even bothered to read it, just flipped through it once as Grayson handed it to him, then gave a sarcastic thanks and threw the book somewhere in his shelf. He had planned to throw it away as soon as he saw it again and when Grayson wasn’t around to pick it up and hand it back to him. But he had found a better way to dispose of it, and Billy didn’t seem offended even a little bit when he tore open the paper and inspected the book.

“I love pictures”, he said and put the book on a table full of other paper and presents he had already gotten. “Let’s play”, he took Damian´s arm and pulled him towards the other kids. It would have been more than easy for Damian to get out of the grip, but he held back and chose not to. He had to remain in control of the situation. Billy had to let him go a few seconds later when his mother saw him anyway, she noticed his bloody nose immediately.

“Have you guys been playing to rough?”, she asked as she pulled him away into the kitchen.

“No mommy, I fell”, he heard Billy answer as he disappeared around the corner.

That left Damian in a room with ten remaining children that jumped over every single bit of furniture they could find. Damian had already decided he hated costume parties yesterday, now he just felt confirmed in his suspicions, costume parties sucked. He already spotted two other kids dressed as Batman, three Robins, of which two wore the outfit that lacked regular pants, a Catwoman, a Nightwing (of which he definitely would take a photo to send to Grayson) and a total of three Wonder Woman, one of which wasn’t even a girl. He was surprised there weren’t more Superman, although he suspected that the host might have told them all they couldn’t come in the same costume as him.

“Aha, I have captured you in my lasso of truth, now you’re the bad guy”, one of the Wonder Woman’s ran over and put her lasso around him. “I have captured one of the Batman’s, two are remaining. Do you copy, Nightwing? Wonder Woman Two?”, she screamed across the room, it would have been amazing if they wouldn’t hear her. They just chose to ignore the words and proceeded to try to tie up the pantless Robins respectively.

In one fluid movement Damian made his way out of the lasso and escaped towards Cabwoman’s table on which the little girl had stretched out to try and hit the Robin with pants with her whip while he jumped out of the way, each time reacting just a little slower. Who even had decided that it seemed like a good idea to give kids such things as ropes and whips?

Luckily, he didn’t have to deal with the male Wonder Woman that was just about to charge at him with his rope. The boy couldn’t move too fast towards Damian, seeing as on the other side of his rope he had already tied up another Batman that he now had to drag with him. Before he reached Damian though he was stopped in his track by the mother’s announcement. She had just brought Billy back from the clean up and decided it was time to serve the cake.

It might not have been on par with what Alfred could make, but it was by no means a bad cake. Damian sat down at the table and put on his napkin, he didn’t want to risk getting his fathers old suit dirty. Than he grabbed his knife and fork and looked up to get a piece of cake. That was when he realized that he was surrounded by barbarians. It seemed no other kid had even realized that they possessed such things as plates, they straight up served themselves the pieces onto their hands and stuffed their mouths with it. Damian´s gaze travelled to the mother in the kitchen where she was busy filling glasses for all the guests. That poor lady, she didn’t even seem to have servants that could help her clean this mess. Strangely enough she didn’t seem bothered by it as she came back to distribute the juice.

By the time that the guests gulped down the glasses and jumped back up to play, now full of energy AND sugar, Damian had just begun to eat his first piece. No one was hurrying him either, the mother opened the door to the backyard and let them roam free across her garden. Obviously her furniture was more important to her then her flowers. Damian couldn’t care less, but after he took his time to eat his piece he had no more excuse to stay away from the group that had now discovered a ball in the small garage. He considered just going to the toilet for the rest of the time. Or maybe fake getting sick from eating to much. But he would probably fail the mission if he left now, so he stood up straight and headed towards the ball playing group.

“He´s here, six verses six now, the buckets are the goals”, one of the Wonder Woman’s announced. Damian knew the rules of soccer, he just never knew them like this. They hadn’t even voted teams, and if then it must have been when he wasn’t there yet, he had no idea for whom he played. But it seemed neither anybody else knew, they just ran at the ball and kicked into the general direction of whichever goal they saw. The true extent to which they all were clueless became obvious when the first goal was made, and everyone cheered as though they won a war, not kicked a ball between a bucket and a stick. Damian thought they might realize their issue of not having teams, but they didn’t. They got the ball and ran at it again. Did they even have rules? Damian saw enough fouls to be sure they didn’t. After the second goal Damian became bored of standing at the side, instead, he decided to take action and show them how it was done. There were no defenses, one good kick and you could make a goal without any problems.

So he did.

But did they realize they might profit from announcing a goalkeeper? Surely not, they all stormed at and piled up on him, throwing their arms around him and jumping up and down.

At this moment Damian stiffened and forced down all his reactions, he would demand father to buy him another dog or something after he had survived this, his self-control was of the charts today after all. As they slowly let him go and went to get the ball Damian got a look at his watch, just another two hours. It seemed doable. He would play along for now but be cold and distant when brought back home. His father would realize that Damian was able to get along with the kids, but he wouldn’t put him trough it again if he told him how he didn’t have any fun at all. He wouldn’t do this to him twice after all, or else he would punish Damian for having been a mannered kid at this party.

He could do it.

And then the mother stepped out of the house behind him and announced: “Look Billy, Marvin could still make it.”

He should have known by the words that another kid had arrived, nothing that he couldn’t deal with. What he didn’t know though was, that, as soon as he turned around, in front of him there stood Kiteman.

Seriously, it was a reflex that he couldn’t suppress. His fist extended and collided with the face of the child in the surprisingly well-made costume. To well-made.  
And sadly, this kid wasn’t like Billy, he didn’t just stand back up and went on. This kid chose the first option and cried. Loudly. A lot. Directly in front of the mother.  
Needless to say, Alfred was called early.

“It wasn’t my fault”, he said as soon as he climbed into the car. “He looked like a villain, he surprised me.”

Alfred sighed.


	2. School

It didn’t come as a surprise to Damian when he was given a lunchbox at seven in the morning after he had finished training and breakfast. He sighed as Alfred put it down next to him and looked at his father who lazily sipped his coffee as he scrolled through his phone for meetings he had today.

“Are you really doing this to me, father? Alfred is a good teacher. I don’t need school and I certainly don’t need classmates.”

“I think you could profit from actual friendships with peers.”

“I don’t need friends, I have enough people around me already, and these are the kind to whom I can actually talk about things I want to talk about, be it our nightly activities or literature above kindergarten level.”

“Your brothers don’t count, you got them in a package deal because you are my son. How about making friends on your own and living a healthy life, at least at day.”

“I don’t need a `healthy´ life, I am above these imbeciles. I was raised by the league-“

“And they never gave you the chance to see another life. By now this hasn’t been decided as a permanent thing, we will just test how well you are doing in a school environment. Take it as an experiment. Now you should go pack, you wouldn’t want to be late on your first day.”

Bruce didn’t let himself be shaken in his decision, Damian had to acknowledge that. But now he knew that this had yet to become an irreversible part of his life, he just had to make his father understand that he didn’t belong in a school. He should know by now how to pull such stunts, after the costume party that was.  
Reluctantly he grabbed the lunch box and his new bag and stuffed it with the next best paper and pens that he could find on his way to the door.

 

Gotham city middle school awaited him as Alfred pulled up in front of the gate.

“A shame that our way isn’t longer”, Damian noticed as he looked out of the window. “Then I would have you bring me with the helicopter.”

“You certainly would, Master Damian. Now hurry inside, or do you want me to accompany you during your first walk to the secretary and the new home room? I could hold your hand as well.”

Damian pushed his door open and jumped outside, throwing his bag carelessly over his shoulder. “As if I´d need help getting around in this poor excuse of a school. I lived in mansions bigger than this.” He shut the door before Alfred answered and didn’t look back as he followed the stream of children pouring into the school.

It would have been easier had he come ten minutes earlier, because now he was in the middle of a bunch of taller-than-him children hurrying to their classrooms, blocking his vision as he tried to find the secretary’s office where he was supposed to be by now. The bell rang, the people around him began to clear up more and more until they were all gone and left him in the hallway. All alone. He preferred it this way. Had he really put his mind to it he could certainly already be at the office, but he let himself stroll around, peek into other classrooms and map out the building in his mind.

Fifteen minutes later he arrived at the office where he was supposed to be. Should he be missing any longer they might consider calling his father, he couldn’t have his first call home before he even attended his first class. With a sigh he pushed the door open and was greeted by chaos. A woman went hectically through papers on the table, another stood by the window and looked out anxiously while being on the phone and a man grabbed his keys and was just about to leave the room when Damian came first in opening the door.

“Hello, I am Damian Wayne, today is my first day at this school”, he announced as he got the attention of all the people upon arrival. The man dropped his keys, the woman put down some papers and the other whispered a quick excuse into the phone before hanging up and coming over to him.

“Damian, thank god you are here. We were really worried something happened to you when you weren’t here or in your class already. Where were you?”

Fifteen minutes and they already worried this much? He hadn’t anticipated this. “I got lost, I´m sorry, Miss.” She had been on the phone, surely she must have already talked with Alfred, maybe even his father. A great start into the day. Though, if he caused enough trouble maybe they would kick him from the school. But Bruce wouldn’t like that, he would only be put into the next school. No, he couldn’t get kicked, he needed to prove the inferiority of the school system to his own knowledge. “But here I am. Can you show me to my class now?”

 

The secretary knocked on the door and left as the woman that opened greeted them. She led him into the class and had him stand beside her desk. “Attention, class.” She didn’t need to call for the attention, everyone’s eyes had been on Damian from the second onwards that he entered. “Please, tell the class who you are”, she said and waited.

“I am Damian Wayne. I will be your new temporary classmate.”

“Temporary?” “A Wayne?” He already heard their whispers.

The teacher looked at him like he was supposed to say a little more, but he didn’t think that to be necessary, so he stayed silent for the few seconds that their gazes met each other, then she gave up and showed him to a seat at the wall, first row. He would have preferred a seat by the window, but since this was just a temporary arrangement he didn’t need to worry about his place too much.

His teacher introduced herself as Ms. Courtney, his homeroom teacher. She didn’t seem all to bad, he could deal with her just fine. That didn’t mean that she was a good teacher, it meant he could block out her voice with ease and she wasn’t to keen on picking on him out of all the students just because he was new. Damian payed attention for a little while, Ms. Courtney wrote down several equations that they must have learned in the last lesson and asked for the solutions. Only two hands went up, the rest sat still and watched, or they simply drew into their notebooks. Damian followed the second example and started drawing the muggers that he and his father had taken down last night as they robbed a cinema. He didn’t get to concentrate in that for too long though as a sheet was put down on his desk.

“Silence please”, Ms. Courtney went around the room to distribute her sheets. “I prepared some worksheets containing similar problems, please proceed to solve them for the next ten minutes in silence. I shall then take them back and evaluate how well you have understood this topic and whether or not you require some extra help.”

As she finished her round around the room Damian heard her steps leading her back to his desk and she crouched down next to him. “Damian, I don’t know how well you understand this topic just yet. If you couldn’t follow the problem we just solved in front I can explain it to you again. Are you familiar with this kind of math already?”

A voice spoke up behind her. “Ms. Courtney, if he gets help, can you help me too?”

She turned around. “But you shouldn’t need me, Amber. He is new here, he wasn’t there in our last lessons. He needs the help, you shouldn’t. But if you have a question nonetheless, I will be there in a second. Try solving it on your own first.”

“Ms Courtney”, Damian made her turn her attention back. “I solved harder equations then this before I could talk. In fact, I noticed you have made a mistake down here, this is not solvable. You swapped a symbol. If you need my help moving forward I offer it.” He quickly filled the last row. She had taken nearly two minutes to distribute all the sheets, that had certainly been enough time to finish for Damian. He passed her his sheet and she looked through it, slightly stunned.

“Wow, Damian. It seems you did all of them correctly. You must have been taught this at home already. Do you require some harder work? I would like to know your current stage so that I can give you the correct lessons.”

“With my current level I could write a doctor in math and take over your job.”

For a short moment, she said nothing. Than she broke out in a little laugh. Damian´s hand went down to his shoe where he stored his knife, did the Joker infiltrate his school? But she stopped laughing shortly after. “Oh Damian, you even said it with a straight face, that is adorable. Here”, she stood up and returned with another sheet from her desk. “Try solving this, but I warn you, it is harder than what you did before. Tell me if you can’t solve it.” Then she patted his head and turned to help Amber.

Damian scanned through the sheet. His teacher in the League would have had him fight two armed fighters without weapons if he wouldn’t have been able to get through this sheet in under two minutes at the age of three. Hell, the questions he got at the age three were harder than this.

He started solving the sheet but slowed down after the first two problems. If he solved it fast again Ms. Courtney would proceed in giving him harder tasks until they would come to the level on which Alfred worked with him. And then the school would start teaching him something for real, if they were competent enough that was. His father would then decide that it was best to keep him in this hell. No, he needed to show his father how far above school he was. So he slowed down and drew on his picture in the pauses he made. He played with the thought of putting some mistakes on his sheet on purpose, but that felt beneath him.

“Times up”, finally the teacher got all the sheets back. She looked at Damian´s a little longer before putting it on the pile. “You might not have been able to finish, but the solutions you have seem very accurate. Was this harder? Is this the level you need?”

“Sure, why not.” He leaned back and played with his pen, she returned happily to her desk and stored the paper.

A clock rang, she held up her hand and turned her attention to the class. “What do you all say, do we need to make a pause, or will we proceed with English lessons and end class five minutes early?”

The class erupted in “Later” screams, someone stood up on his chair in excitement. Damian couldn’t fathom why, but he didn’t mind either of the ideas, so he remained silent.

It turned out that English was not even a little better then math. Ms. Courtney projected a text at the wall, they read in turns. It was an exercise in pronouncing the “new, hard words”. Surely his father had to be joking, to put him in a school like this. He would have loved to block out his surroundings and maybe get lost in his thoughts, but that turned out to be hard seeing as every two minutes he had to read a new sentence of the story of a knight fighting a pond of alligators. What wouldn’t he give for an attack on the school right now, he didn´t even care what villain would show up. He sighed in relief as Ms. Courtney finally announced the twenty-five minutes of pause outside in the court.

They were the first to arrive, his class stormed over to the little playground and climbed the monkey bars, under Ms. Courtney’s watchful eyes of course. “Be careful”, she warned as they all already pulled out their lunch boxes and showed of to each other with their bread.

Damian hadn’t hurried to follow his class; therefore the only bench and the monkey bars were full when he came. Either he made himself some space way to close to some other kid or he ate on the floor. Or… his eyes wandered up a pole to the small space on top, only a rope lead up the nearly two meters, no one had taken that climb out of their own free will. They were probably too weak to make it. Damian could make it up there without even using the rope, it wasn’t high. But Alfred had warned him to keep his athletic abilities in check at school as to not arise suspicion. But climbing a rope wasn’t suspicious, so Damian took that route and pulled himself up in record time.

“Look, he flew up there”, a kid pointed out, and Damian recognized that voice. Out of all the voices possible, it had to be him. Billy jumped down from the bars, the teacher looked like someone had taken away her air as Billy landed hard. But the boy stood up like he didn’t just jump from one and a half meters of height into the gravel. It seemed to be a thing with him, but this time at least his nose didn’t bleed. Damian hadn’t payed much attention to his classmates, he had only looked around once and didn’t spot any suspicious figures, his brain must have been kind enough to block out that he had seen some faces before.

Damian chose to ignore the kid and unpacked his lunch, Alfred’s cucumber sandwiches. They made his day at least a little better. His mood was brought back down when the two meters height difference didn’t stop Billy from coming over and taking the rope in his hand.

“I want to fly up there too, make some space, new kid, here I come.” He pulled at the rope, grabbed it with his second hand. “Up, up and away”, he grunted as he struggled to get of the ground. Damian ignored his fruitless attempts, instead he pulled his smartphone from his pocket and checked for new messages.

Grayson had wished him a good first day in school and attached at least twenty different encouraging smileys. Other than that, he only had a message from Todd reading “Haha”, and an emoji that stuck out its tongue. Damian chose to ignore both messages and instead started to write to his father, a report detailing how little the school could help him in regard to his education. Before he could hit send though a hand appeared on the edge of the platform, Billy heaved himself up and scratched the wood in an attempt to get to him. Damian questioned whether or not he could have actually made it up himself, but a quick look down told him no, Ms. Courtney was lifting him up and supporting his feet so that he could manage the climb.

“Ah ha”, Billy got up and sat next to Damian. “I knew I could do it.” Just not on his own. “Wow, you have a smartphone? I want one too, but my father says I am too young. Can I see it?”, Billy stretched out his smeary, dirty from dust hands towards his phone and Damian shut it off quickly and stored it in his pocket.

“Sorry, it just ran out of power.”

Billy didn’t even question that. “Next time then. What is it that you have for lunch? I have some carrots, and this orange, and this bread, and some juice, and a few pieces of melon, and this little salami…”, he proceeded to pull out all of his food and lay it out in front of him. On the platform. The dirty, full of dust and sand platform. “Do you want something? I share.”

“No thank you, I am quiet content with my meal.” Damian quickly ate the rest of his bread before Billy could ask if he would share.

“Is that all you have? Just bread and cucumbers? Are you poor? Don’t worry, I will help you. Here, take my chocolate bar. You might need it more than me. Mommy says to share especially with those that are poor.” Billy pressed his chocolate into Damian’s hand and proceeded to eat his food of the platform. At least the chocolate was packaged separately, so it didn’t lay in the dirt. Therefore Damian accepted it, not without defending himself, though.

“I am certainly not poor, my father is very rich. Don’t you know the Wayne family?”

“Oh, you mean Bruce Wayne? He owns that one large firm, right?”

“That’s right, and he is my father. And I am his son, Damian Wayne.”

“Yeah, that man has a bunch of kids, right? You must have a lot of siblings. Sometimes I wish I had siblings.”

“While it is true that my father has adopted some children, I am his only son related by blood.”

“Cool, does that mean you are his best child?”

Alright, maybe Damian did not mind the company of this boy. He took a bite of his chocolate and nodded. “I would consider myself superior, that is right.”

“You use some big words, you know”, Billy had already eaten most of his food.

Their conversation was cut short before Damian could explain that, maybe, Damian didn’t use “big words”, maybe Billy was just a little stupid.

“Boys, please come down now. And be careful”, Ms. Courtney stood below them and looked up. She stretched out her arms to help them, and as Billy went first he didn’t even really try to use the rope, he basically let himself fall into Ms. Courtney’s arms and she sat him down gently. “Now you, Damian”, she wanted him to jump in her arms? If Damian wanted to he could do a somersault and just roll off upon landing. But Alfred had said no such stunts. So instead Damian settled for climbing down the rope on his own. When he touched the ground Ms. Courtney even applauded him, Billy went right along. Applause because he climbed a two-meter rope?

Ridiculous.

 

The pause hadn’t been bad, the lesson that followed was though. Spanish. Damian had spoken Spanish basically his entire life. He knew a bunch of languages, actually. There were no entire-class-readings in this lesson though, therefore Damian could just doodle on his paper. That was until near the end of the lesson where Ms. Courtney announced the horror that was his homework. She had already given out a sheet for math, one for vocabulary in English. And now she brought out the essays for next lesson.

“I would like you all to write half a page a day until next week. Just half a page about what you where doing that day. I will collect and grade them for you on next Monday. How does that sound?” Not like her best idea judging by the reluctant response from the class. She seemed happy anyway. “Great, then I sadly have to announce, our day is already over. The bell will ring in a few seconds and you all go home, so let’s stand up and say good bye together, alright?”

Damian stood, but he kept his mouth closed as they all sang a good bye too each other right as the bell rang. Finally. He grabbed his back and headed quickly towards the door, but Ms. Courtney had already seen through his plan and touched his shoulder right as he was about to leave and had him come to her desk while all the others left.

“See you tomorrow, Damian”, Billy passed by him.

“Hopefully not”, he said through closed teeth and a forced smile.

“I am so glad that you have already made friends, Damian”, Miss Courtney sat down and began to gather her papers. “I think you will do well in this class.”

“Sure, whatever. May I leave now?” He pulled his bag over his shoulders and straighten his stance.

“Of course, any second now. But here”, she passed him an envelope that Damian had seen her seal during some Spanish sheet lessons they had filled out in silence. “Please pass this on to your father, he asked for it. If you feel no need to talk to me a little longer you may leave now.”

He stored the envelope and murmured a good bye as he finally left the classroom. He was interested what his teacher might want to give his father, but that question could not yet be answered. He would try and open it at home with hot steam when no one was looking though.

Alfred was already awaiting Damian at the gate, he opened the door for him, slipped on the driver’s seat and looked at Damian in the rear mirror as he started the car. “So how was your day, Master Damian?”

“Horrible. This school can not give me the proper education I desire.”

“So nothing new here. But did you make contacts? Talk to some classmates?”

“Certainly not, I do not require contact with peers.”

 

As soon as they arrived at the manor Damian sprinted inside and began forming a plan how he could open the envelope, but he was stopped as he nearly collided with his father on the steps.

“What are you doing here?”, surprised, Damian came to a halt and squinted suspiciously at his father.

“I cut the meeting short, I wanted to be here when you came back from your first day at school.” They locked eyes, Damian couldn’t believe that this would be all, and it wasn’t. In one fluid motion Bruce leaned forward a little and snatched the envelope out of Damian’s open bag. He turned and started walking up the stairs, Damian followed on his heel.

“You can’t just take that”, he tried to jump up and get it back from his father, but he held the papers out of reach.

“Then this isn’t what I had specifically requested from your teacher for me?”

“It is”, Damian didn’t give up. “But you could at least wait until I give it to you.”

“Tell me, Damian, how was your first day? Aside from the fact that you don’t feel the fifth grade is appropriate for your level, of course.”

“It was boring and bland, father. A waste of time. I don’t feel it would be productive to send me back there tomorrow. Please, let me be tutored by Alfred again.”

“Not productive? We can´t evaluate that just yet. And you can’t get around homework anymore by asking for longer times, the school will demand you to do your work on time and proper. It shouldn’t even be an issue for you to keep up. In addition”, his father pulled another paper from the envelope and stopped to hold it up for Damian to see. “I feel that school isn’t too bad for you.”

He looked at the picture and recognized it immediately. His cunning teacher must have made it, a snapshot exactly in the moment as Billy had handed Damian the chocolate bar, the other boy smiling bright.

Damian jumped up to try and catch the picture, but his father pulled it up and above his head. “Alfred”, the butler appeared at his side and Bruce handed him the photo. “Please put it in a nice frame, we can hang it in my study. Or maybe the living room.”

“Certainly, Master Bruce”, Alfred disappeared and his father crouched down to Damian´s level.

“Don’t complain, Damian. School is no bad thing, you will see. And if you feel to bored in the long run I can have Alfred give you some extra work to keep your brain running”, his father tapped against his forehead, then headed back towards the stairs and the exit.

“Where are you going, father?”

“Back to work, I can’t slack off anymore, I have a business to run.”

“You came home just to see that photo?”

“If I wouldn’t have you would have definitely destroyed it before I could see it, isn’t that right?”

“The picture is of no meaning, we aren’t even friends, he just came to me by chance.”

Bruce opened the door. “Be good, Damian, do your homework and training. Now excuse me while I will change my phones background again.”

Damian already knew what he would change it too. What was the point of the envelope if they just mailed each other anyway? His father was mocking him.


	3. Video call

It was a rather calm morning at Wayne Enterprises when the man from the IT left Bruce Wayne’s office, just having installed and set up the new communication program on the computer. Bruce sat down and inspected it with a few clicks. He would be able to talk to and see his business partners in real time with barely any time lapses or awkward malfunctions on the new system they had programmed. With this he could finally get out of a few meetings that he was forced to sit in.

Of course he had used such programs as Batman for a long time already, but only now that a Chinese company had brought out this program and aggressively marketed it overseas as well most businessman were ready to give such a way of communication a go. Specifically after the company proved how secure their program was.

Bruce had just come from a briefing with his secretary, he still had half an hour to get comfortable with the new system before he would have a meeting with the important man from China that couldn’t be bothered to come all the way personally. He had requested to talk to Bruce through his program, probably to have him realize how great it was, make him a long-time client and use him for marketing.

He scrolled through his contacts that the program had already picked up on. As soon as he called the person would be asked to install the program to answer. Bruce decided he might as well call someone in the time he had left, it was the best way to get to know what he was working with. So he clicked the first best name. His screen filled in black, a circle turning in the middle and a beep coming from his speakers. It didn’t take long until the other picked up and Tim’s face filled his screen.

“Tim, how are you doing?”

Tim stared straight at the camera and took a sip from his coffee cup.

“Bruce, if you wish to talk to me, you can just walk the few steps. I am in the same building after all. When will Lucius recover anyway, I didn’t plan on covering his work for this long.”

“And I am very proud that you are still helping out in the company. So, how are you doing? Too much work? I can ask someone to help you, if you want.”

His son just waved a hand at that and closed a file on his desk. “Whatever, it isn’t hard. I can do it, I just don’t want to forever. So how is Lucius.”

“I called him in the morning, he will be fine, give him one or two more days and he will be back.” Bruce himself had to admit, there seemed to be more work when Lucius wasn’t there. Afterall, Bruce didn’t spend a lot of his time in his office at the company, but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided. For example at the times when important businessman requested to speak to him personally, like today.

“I am sure you didn’t intend to call just to tell me that. What do you need from me?”

“I thought we might just talk. You get a pause, I figure out all the buttons on the side here while having some company.” Bruce let his cursor wander to the side of the window. At the top there was a red button with a phone on it, it would most likely end the call. But what did the other buttons do? Bruce pressed the one right underneath the first, a pink button with an OK sign. The second he pressed it two arrows appeared at the bottom of his screen and Tim’s face was spotted by the face recognition program.

“Bruce, what are you doing over there. Am I just your guinea pig for a test or something?”

Bruce pressed the button; the screen gave Tim bunny ears. “Cute”, he commented and pressed on, now he had cat ears. Now a horn that sprinkled glitter, now he had hearts coming from all over his face.  
Now he was a dog.

“What are you doing, Bruce? Your face is doing that weird thing were your lips are in another position than `brooding bat´.”

“Bold of you to assume I´m alone in this room”, Bruce gave back as he skimmed through the filters, turning Tim into a baby with pacifier in the progress. “Hold still for a second”, he pulled his phone out.

“I don’t think I like this”, Tim said as Bruce made the shot.

As his father put the phone back down a blue bolt appeared on the screen, splitting it in half. On the one half was Tim, on the other appeared a sweaty Dick Grayson in gym clothes. He seemed to contact them from his phone, judging by how the perspective kept changing as he sat down and took a sip from his water bottle.

“I was just training. What is going on, is there some kind of problem?”

“No”, Tim answered first. “I just spotted the button to add someone. No emergency.”

“Then what are you doing?”, Dick put his phone down and came back into the frame a second later, now with a towel around the neck.

“I called Tim to try this new program and pass the time, talk.”

“I talk”, Tim chimed in. “He is doing something on his screen and grinning. He is up to something, Dick.”

Bruce ignored them in favor of putting the baby filter of Dicks face as well. Too cute.

“Alright, fine”, Dicks hand covered his camera shortly, when he came back into view, the screen split up again, now into three parts. On the third appeared first nothing but darkness. Only after a lamp was clicked on Jason’s face came into focus. He was still lying in bed. Seeing as all the people in the family stayed up long on a daily basis it came as a shock to no one that the boy still had to get up at something after eight in the morning.

“Good morning, Jason”, Bruce greeted while flipping through the filters. The software took the longest time to find Jason’s face, but Bruce decided it was worth the wait.  


“There better be an emergency in the family”, the newest to join grunted into his pillow as he hid from the light.

“There sure isn’t. Bruce just really wanted to talk to as all.” Tim was sipping his coffee again and looked through some of his papers. “Of course right at the time where some of as are trying to work.” He looked straight in the camera. “For him.”

Bruce ignored his words in favor of snapping a second photo of his screen. “It is nice to see the family sometimes, don’t you think?”, he said while setting himself a new background on the phone.

“Then where is Damian?”, Dick asked.

“He is in school”, Bruce answered nonchalantly.

“I can’t believe it. You managed to send him to school?”, Jason held the phone over his face, Bruce was sure he would let it fall sooner or later.

“I´ll send him an encouraging message. Surely he is no fan of the school idea”, Dicks fingers were blocking the camera again. How did he type on his phone?

“Yeah, same”, this was the second that Jason’s hands lost the grip on the phone. Just like Bruce had predicted.

“He´ll survive”, Tim wrote something in his files.

Bruce ignored the banter for a little while as his phone buzzed, Alfred asked if it was a good time to call right now or if Bruce was in an important meeting. Bruce took a look at his computer, seconds later the screen split and Alfred appeared in the fourth space.

“Master Bruce”, he held the phone a bit from his ears. “There is a call from Damian´s school, apparently he has still not turned up to the office. They are panicking. What should we do?”

“Tell them he will likely be there soon. If he takes another ten minutes you will personally go over and have a talk with him”, Bruce answered.

“Tell them it’s normal, he is a bratty demon after all. As if he would be on time.” Tim leaned back in his chair.

“Tell them to follow the trace of blood if they want to find him”, apparently Jason had yet to care enough to pick his phone back up from his face.

“Maybe he just got lost. Schools can be big and confusing when you enter them for the first time”, Dick seemed concerned.

“I shall tell her what you have said, Master Bruce”, Alfred said and put the phone back up against his ear.

“You just know that he would never get lost. Not that kid.” Tim rolled his eyes at Dicks remark.

“You can´t know that. It’s a new situation for him. He could be.”

“As if.”

They were cut short when Alfred spoke up again. Not to them directly, but on the phone. “Oh, so he came. That is very good, yes. We are happy as well. Yes, thank you.” He put the phone down. “He has reappeared.”

“Good. Alfred, call the school again. Tell them I would like a report of Damian´s behavior in school today. The teacher can have him bring it home.”

“Knowing Damian you should probably ask the teacher to mail it directly to you”, said Tim and Alfred nodded.

“Very well then, I will inform the school. Say, Master Bruce, when is your meeting starting anyway?”

The screen covered his clock, he had to grab his phone to look. Not that it would have been fast enough. The screen split back up, a fifth window appeared. The call of the Chinese businessman had been scheduled in the program, of course it would be accepted as soon as it came through. Though Bruce had believed that that meant his call would be ended automatically, not that the new man would be added.

Bruce stared at the elderly Chinese man as well as two other important looking man at the table where they were sitting. The Chinese man stared at a screen showing Bruce on his phone, a boy in bed, a boy dosed in sweat, another reading highly classified papers and a butler on the phone with the school again.

“Nice to see you, Mister Chang”, Bruce caught himself again first and began closing all his other calls. “I have been expecting you.”


	4. Homework

“Master Bruce”, Alfred stopped next to Bruce’s chair in the batcave and set down a tablet with some snacks. “I am afraid your patrol might get delayed today.”

“What makes you say that?”, Bruce turned, Alfred gestured to Damian behind him. The boy had his arms crossed and held a few pages tight in his hand. “What happened, Damian?”

The boy bit his lower lip, then came around to his father to face him easier. “It´s nothing, really. But Alfred keeps insisting on me presenting my homework to you. Really, there is no reason to delay the patrol.”

“What homework?”

“Spanish. Every day we had to write half a page about what we did. It seems Alfred is not happy with what I wrote.”

“Read it to me”, Bruce said.

Damian rolled his eyes, but he still pulled up the sheets and began reading. “My week, by Damian Wayne. Monday. At first, I found out that my father was intending to keep me in school for a longer, unspecified amount of time. After my day was ruined nothing of significance happened. I did, however, manage my training with the sword in the garden without mistakes again and defeated one of fathers training robots before we headed out for the night.”

“Wait. Damian, are you revealing our secret personas in your Spanish homework?”, Bruce asked and already put his fingers next to his eyes as he felt an approaching headache.

“Of course not. But to make something up seemed silly and boring, so I pretended our nightly actions were things that happened on all these bachelor partys where you are always going to anyway.”

“Remove the sword fighting, to risky. And scratch the robot as well, say you ate cookies with Alfred or something.”

Damian stopped shortly and Alfred handed him a pencil as he reluctantly noted the changes in his essay. “So anyway.” He put the pen down. “We are always heading to some rich people’s partys for the night. Tonight, it was Miss Ivy’s party. She is a real big fan of nature and decorated large parts of the party room with some plants and even hung some priceless jewelry from them, her best friend seemed to approve of that. Miss Quinn, the friend, was very outgoing that night and even agreed to do some intense talking with me while father had a chat with Miss Ivy.”

“Change the names.” Bruce said. Again, Damian scribbled something down before going on.

“Tuesday. On Tuesday’s party we met my bigger brother. To specify, I have three brothers (although they are all adopted, I am fathers only child related by blood). The one we met was Grayson. He is a good big brother and helped us keep the dialogue flowing at the party. Normally Grayson lives in another city, but he came over because he felt like meeting me himself after I finally started school. Grayson seemed not considerate enough in supporting my dislike for school, but Mister Zsasz agreed with my side as we tied him down with our engrossing argument.”

“Names”, Bruce sighed.

“Although I tried to reason with him again, father still won’t allow me to stop going to school.” Damian kept reading while noting the comment down. “Wednesday. This evening started off rather tedious as we just met some new and forgettable faces at the party and our talks went over fast with them. A banker, a jeweler and some Lady’s from a casino. It seemed boring, until we came across Miss Selina Kyle. She is good friends with father and as it happened, she was just talking to some archaeologists when we met her. We saved her from that boring conversation and father told me to wander off on my own for a while because he would be a little busy now. Father might think that I would believe him when he says he just wants to talk about the archaeologist with her, but I have eyes. Of course I know that, as soon as I left, the two would get down and –“

“Damian”, his father sighed again. “I believe your teacher wouldn’t approve of you leaving that part in. Change the names, strike that last sentence. Write something about how well the food tasted or whatever.”

Damian noted the changes down. “Fine then. Thursday.”

“Wait”, Bruce stopped him again. “How long is this going to be?”

“Until Sunday, Sir.”

“Yeah, I will have to write that day tomorrow morning though.” Damian flipped though his pages.

“And did you write all your pages like that?”

“Yes, father. Now follows Thursday when we had that little argument with Todd, the Riddler on Friday and last night with Drake, Two-face and that one fountain.”

“Yeah, I remember. I can see why you asked me to look over this, Alfred. Also, Damian, Jason is still legally dead, please do not out him to the public. Just change the names again.” Bruce turned to Alfred. “Duty is calling. I can´t review this essay all night.” He stood up and grabbed his mask, he already wore the rest of his gear. “Would you mind reading the rest, Alfred?” He pulled the mask over and Damian handed the butler his sheets.

“If you want me to, Sir.”

Bruce had to admit, he had really hoped that the situation would be resolved now. He had thought wrong though, as soon as the Batmobile started Alfred cleared his throat over the communicator.

“Alright then, Sir, I shall now read the homework of Master Damian. Thursday. Tonight we met my other brother, Todd. He is the one that is neither Dick nor dick, mark the writing, and we saw him right as he was about to cross the Jordan. Jordan, of course, being a very good friend of his, not to be confused with the river that symbolizes dying…”

Bruce groaned.


	5. Kidnapped

If they would have come at night, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Sadly, they tried it at day and worked their way down the list of widely known Wayne family members.

They got them all at once, all in the early afternoon. Dick, Tim, Damian. And then came the call with the demand. Money. Who would have thought.

Well, it was less a personal call, more the kidnappers sending a video message to all of Gotham’s news channels and having it broadcasted. It would have been easier if they just told Bruce personally, because now he had been taken by the police to the place where the kidnappers kept his children. On Bruce’s demand, of course. The police had tried to keep him at the department, but Bruce had resisted and told them some sappy stories about how he had to see his children and just couldn’t stay away.

The GCPD had the building surrounded where the kidnappers had holed themselves in with his kids.

“Mister Wayne”, Gordon came around from somewhere between the cars and held out his hand. “I am sorry for what you are currently forced to go through. We promise to do our best so that none of your children will get hurt.”

“Thank you, Commissioner.” Bruce was far more worried that something happened to the kidnappers, he knew his children after all. He was glad they didn’t know about Jason or tried anything on his daughter. Cassandra was in Hong Kong, the kidnappers could surely not have been bothered to try and get her all the way from over there.

Gordon was still looking right at him, so Bruce turned away first. He feared that Gordon might be able to tell for whom he was really worried when he gave him enough time to look at his faked `worried father´ act. “So what’s the plan, Commissioner?”

“We will have to wait first, let them fear their plan didn´t work and eventually they will make a mistake. If not, then we might have to get the money to at least ensure the safety of the hostages. It´s our top priority to keep them safe. We understand that, among your other two sons, they also have your ten-year-old.”

Yeah, actually Damian made Bruce worry the most. He was the most likely to take out the kidnappers in a gruesome way to get out of their hands. But he had Dick and Tim, surely those two would be able to hold him back. Or at least Dick would, Tim could probably not be bothered to stop Damian on his killing spree.

“See, they might be beginning with the mistakes”, Gordon left his side and passed by him through the rest of the armed officers. Bruce followed on his heel and evaluated the scene.

One of the kidnappers came out of the building, he held Damian in front of him and a gun against his head. Surely he chose his youngest because he thought he would be the weakest. Even in their most weakened state Bruce was sure all his sons could take out the kidnappers, they just couldn’t allow themselves to do it in front of all these onlookers when they weren´t wearing their masks. And in front of the camera crews that were around, updating the people at home live. Damian looked positively annoyed at the entire situation, he didn’t play the part of frightened child very well, Bruce had to remind him to step up his game. Best right now.

“I will only talk to Bruce Wayne, we know he is here.”

That could be done. Bruce passed Gordon and evaded the hand that the Commissioner had stretched out to keep him back.

“Oh no”, Bruce yelled, completely in his role, even doing the dramatic hand gestures. “Please, Damian, my son, are you okay?”

Bruce could see him roll his eyes far to clearly even from the distance, so he glared at him and gestured with his hands for Damian to at least try. There were cameras here, god dammit.

“Dad”, Damian yelled back, pretty half-hearted. Bruce mouthed at him to keep going. This time he saw the boys shoulders rise and fall as he breathed out the sigh. “I´m so scared, dad”, he added, then the masked man nudged him with the gun. If he wouldn’t hold his arms back as well Bruce was sure Damian would cross them now.

“Get the money, we will not hesitate to hurt your children. You have twenty minutes left.”

“I will get the money. Please, don’t hurt my children.” Bruce threw in a sad “Damian” as the man began to drag his son back into the building. “Don’t kill them. You hear me? Don’t hurt them, don’t kill them.” He knew that Damian knew exactly that these words were meant for him.

“Mr. Wayne”, Gordons hand touched his shoulder compassionate. “Don’t worry, they still haven’t hurt them. But please get the money ready in case we won’t be able to get them out before the time is over.”

Bruce just hoped his sons would keep true to his words.

 

“Father said not to hurt them”, Damian was thrown back next to his brothers in the room.

“No surprises there”, Tim wiggled a little next to him. Damian had watched him before he was dragged outside and found out that Tim had long since gotten out of the restraints that the men had put his hands in, and then got them back on a little less tight. He had complained to the kidnappers that they were cutting into his flesh, and when they only laughed at him he had to take matters into his own hands. As soon as he had finishes Dick had asked Tim to ease his restraints off as well. It wasn’t that Dick couldn’t do it on his own, the knots were laughable, but they had the time anyway, so Dick figured why not ask Tim to do it, give him something to busy himself with.

“To loose?”, Tim asked as he put the rope back on.

“A little tighter.”

“Like this?”

“Perfect, thank you, Tim.” He smiled at his brother and the guard stood up and came over. He must have thought he scared the boys, how he bent down with that ugly grin on his face and the gun in his hand.

“What are you little rats gossiping about? Do I need to get a bullet through all of your legs before you stop chitchatting?”

“Are they arguing again?”, their first guard came back from his toilet break.

“No, they were whispering this time.”

“At least not arguing, I already had to separate the two small ones before they would start trying to bite each other.” 

They wouldn’t have, Damian was sure he wouldn’t want to take a bite out of Drake even if that was the only way of fighting without showing how capable they were of getting out of their restraints.

The guard turned back around to sit down at the table and the other followed, not without a last totally intimidating glare though.

“So what’s the plan?”, Damian asked and leaned against Dicks shoulder. “Wait till they let us go? Because that’s boring. I have a new game at home waiting for me.”

“We have to wait until it sounds believable that we could flee”, Tim leaned on Dicks other shoulder. “We´ve been over this and there has yet to come a good opportunity. Maybe we could get one of them to angrily throw a knife into our general direction.”

“Or we lure them over here and steal their guns.”

The three boys’ heads whipped to the side at the sound of the familiar voice. Jason, a Jason in civilian clothes, had found a place on Damian´s other side and sat with his brothers on the floor, arms and legs together and behind his back as though they were bound as well. Peer pressure, Damian assumed. “Of course”, he went on. “If that doesn’t work you can wait for your lovely brother to get you out of here.”

At the sound of their voices chatting again their two guards whipped their heads around, presumably to scold them again. Only then they discovered Jason and pulled their guns. “Who is that? How did you get in here?”, they got closer to the boys.

“What are you talking about? I have been here all the time. Don’t you remember kidnapping me? I am Jason Todd-Wayne. You know, Bruce Wayne’s son?”

“Adopted son”, Damian added.

“Bruce Wayne has no more sons, the only other one is dead. Don’t fool us, we have done our research. No tell us how you got here or we will shoot you right there.”

The guard took one more step, and he really shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have taken any steps towards Jason to begin with, after all the fourth brother didn’t even have to pretend he was bound by any ropes. Therefore he could straight up kick with his leg and get the gun out of the attackers hand.

The second guard seemed ready to shoot, but Tim was faster. Now they had an excuse as to why they were out of the restraints, they could just claim that Jason did it for them before he was discovered. Tim punched the second guard to the floor and kicked his gun away. Jason had already taken down the first guard and was now inspecting the man’s gun.

“Not what I would chose”, he said and pocketed both guns anyway. He left the knifes to his brothers and Damian took them while Tim helped Dick up. “Let’s go”, Jason took the lead and was about to kick open the door of this old house, but Dick held him back.

“Us taking out these two armed guards? Maybe. But taking out the entire gang? There are nine more people in this, at least that I counted. We should just sneak out, that’s more believable.”

“Say Jason”, Tim took another look at the guards. “Don’t you think it was unbelievable stupid to tell these two your identity? We could have just said some superhero freed us if you would have come in your uniform.”

“As Red Hood?”, Jason gave back. “Surely not, I have a reputation, alright? If I saved the Wayne kids from the evil kidnappers that would have been far to suspicious, I couldn’t have done that. Superhero saving was out of question.”

“But telling them your name? If you wouldn’t have done that we would claim some wannabe hero dude helped us and you would have left as soon as we got out because you don’t want your face to be known or something. But if they wake back up they might tell the police what you said and then you will have some resurrection rumors to deal with.”

“Damn, you´re right”, Jason stepped back from the door and pulled his new guns, holding them out against both kidnappers.

“You won’t do that”, Dick pushed Jason’s arms down.

“Its okay, I got this”, Damian took out his knifes. “I still have some personal issues with these bastards. They made me squeeze out a fake tear as they abducted me and brought me to this room just so I could keep up my civilian disguise.”

“No killing, it’s the same rule for you”, with his other arm Dick grabbed Damian by the back of his shirt and held him back. “They are criminals that abducted us, no one will believe them even if they claim you have been here. We will just tell the police someone came through the window, freed us and left the same way. There are enough insane people in Gotham who would do such things. Who do people believe, rich kids or criminals?”

“Fine, whatever”, Jason holstered the guns in his belt and turned back around to the door.

As no one was looking, Tim kicked one of the men in his stomach. “That’s for picking me from the streets and spilling my coffee. It was only my second today, okay? Only the second.”

“You coming, Tim?”, Damian stuck his head back through the door.

“Oh yeah, Dami, just a little louder, the rest of the bad guys hasn’t heard you yet”, Tim heard Jason whisper passive-aggressively.

 

The kidnappers turned out to be truly incompetent. They made it to the first floor with barely any inconveniences. Although, most of the criminals were stationed down there behind the door anyway. They waited and rummaged through all the nearly empty cabinets and shelfs they could find just to keep themselves busy.

“Twenty minutes are longer than I thought. Should we go out again and threaten a kid one more time? We would have to take the youngest again, I don’t think I can be bothered to try and drag any of the others with me.”

Damian pulled a face as they said that. “I´ll have you know, I weigh around eighty pounds.”

“And I weigh 125. Hell, Dick is twice your weight and probably even more”, Tim flicked at the back of Damian´s head. “You’re a tiny child, of course they would take you.”

“Take that back, you’re tiny”, Damian turned, probably to kick Tim’s shin or something, but Dick got between them.

“We are so close to the exit, we won’t be found now just because you two are bickering again”, he said with all the authority he could muster while whispering.

The kidnappers started to tun around anyway. “Hey, did you guys hear something?”

“Probably just Bill with an update.” One stood up. “Hey Bill, come over her and tell us how it is going up there.”

“Supy-dupy”, Jason answered.

“Ah, you alright, Bill? Have you been smoking that weird stuff you find in your pockets again? I already told you, that’s just fluff and you are to stop that.”

“Sorry dude”, Jason shouted back. “Be right back, just going to the bathroom.”

Jason motioned for his brothers to get moving in the direction that would slowly let them creep closer to the door.

“The bathroom?”, the other man said to his companions. “He has been there just two minutes ago. Let’s go see what’s wrong.”

“Well, jinxed it.” Jason pulled his guns back out. “Make a run for it, I´ll keep them busy for a minute, then I´ll disappear trough the back. See you.”

“No killing, Jason”, Dick said over his shoulder as he ushered his brothers towards the doors.

“They are making a run for it”, one of the men screamed. Than he screamed again, for other reasons.

 

“My poor children”, Bruce saw them as one of the firsts as they stormed out of the building. Bruce broke through the police line, the played-up worry in his face disappeared as the officers couldn’t see his face anymore. He wrapped his arms around all three kids at once and pulled them with him back behind the police line. 

“I´m so glad you are safe”, he said loudly, then he got close to his kids ears. “No one died, right? No bad or unexplainable injuries?”

“None that we know about, but Jason was in there a little longer than us, I don’t know what he did just now.” Dick whispered back to him.

“Should have known that he was likely to come. At least I haven’t heard more than two gun shots just yet”, Bruce answered.

At the same time the officers were storming the house. Jason was surely gone already.

“Mr. Wayne, I´m glad that your children are safe. I will need their statement soon, though.”, Gordon showed up behind Bruce and looked down at where the man still had yet to let his children go.

“Oh, Commissioner, I´m just glad they are unharmed. Thank you so much for your help.”

Damian´s soul left his body, so hard was he cringing seeing his father act like that. But cringing at him surely didn’t equal to leaving his embrace anytime soon. He would never admit out loud how much he enjoyed getting squished against his family.


	6. Sport

Sports was on Thursdays. Last week it got canceled, the teacher had taken a few days off to visit the family. The class had cheered until it was announced that, instead of sports, there was another lesson of social studies.

But this week the teacher was back, so Ms. Courtney brought the class to the gym and left them in the care of Ms. Blue.

Damian had changed into his regular workout clothes and arrived in the hall as one of the first. There were only two other boys, one of which Damian already knew. He was one of the pantless Robins from Billy’s birthday party, Aiden. He had accepted Damian into his group of friends as easily as Billy had, obviously these children had never been taught how fast someone could betray them.

“Hey Damian. You happy we have sport now? You are very sporty, aren’t you?” He and Billy were big fans of the `acrobatic stunts´ that Damian could pull. These stunts were merely Damian climbing the rope again. Or doing a cartwheel. Or swinging from one bar to the next. They were easily impressed. So was Kitty, Wonder Woman from the party, a female one. She rarely actually talked to Damian or Billy, Kitty was mainly all over Aiden whom she seemed to like the most. She made no secret of it. Seriously. You could walk right up to her at any time and ask who she favored, she always pointed at Aiden.

“I heard you got kidnapped yesterday, it was on the TV.”

“Yeah”, Damian made his way towards the bench and got his name checked on Ms. Blues list.

“Wow, that must have been scary. Thank god you had your big brothers with you.”

“Adopted.”

“I have a bigger brother too”, Aiden went on. “He is really amazing, you know? He always helps me with my homework and makes somersaults on the trampoline in our garden.”

“My brothers make them off of rooftops”, Damian murmured. He underestimated Aiden’s attention span, he wouldn’t have thought that the boy actually listened to his response.

“Wow, of rooftops? That’s amazing. Are they not afraid?”

“My brothers are afraid of nothing. Neither am I, by the way.”

“Nothing? Not even monsters? Or ghosts?”, Aiden wiggled his body in `spooky´ motions.

“Of course not.”

“Wow, your brothers sound amazing.”

Damian huffed, but was cut off as he opened his mouth to answer as Billy and Kitty entered the gym and made their way towards them.

“Did you know?”, Aiden greeted them. “Damian’s brothers jump off of buildings. And they make like flips and turns and all that stuff. Is that not cool?”

“Hey, you will have to make them show it to us at some point”, Billy sat down next to Damian. “Your family is amazing. I have no brothers, and you got three.”

“Adopted”, Damian added, then registered what Billy had said. “Wait, three?”

“Yeah. The two on the TV and the one that I read about in my mothers’ magazine. So, if he was dead, then is he a ghost now? Do you have a ghost as a brother? Damn, you’re so cool.”

A magazine wrote that Jason was alive? Which one? He wanted to get the information from Billy, but Ms. Blue called for attention. Fine, it was whatever. Surely it was simply one of those gossip magazines that heard a potential scoop from the kidnappers, nothing serious. Even if there was a small rumor, it would die down soon. Surely no one believed such gossip from a shady source. Except for Billy, that was. But he was exception, he believed everything.

For now, Damian had to concentrate on the lesson. He was once really happy to find out about sport lessons, he thought them to at least be better than sitting in class and becoming the teachers pet one day at a time. On the first day he had still tried to just sit it out and doodle in his books, but by the second day he had found that it was far more fun to keep on dragging the other students by showing that he knew the answer. Every time. A hundred percent. On Wednesday, Billy had told him that he was lucky that he showed off how strong and athletic he was, or else they would all think he was uncool.

Now he wasn’t happy for this lesson anymore. Ms. Blue introduced their first unit, endurance. Next would be strength, then they would go ice skating. Endurance training was the most boring, his classmates agreed with loud groans.

But they didn’t get started right away anyway, Ms. Blue told them that every lesson would start off with ten minutes of yoga to get everyone warmed up. The positions that the teacher showed would never count as enough stretching for the kind of things that Damian normally did, but just for running around in a hall it was probably enough. Touch your toes, circle your neck, do windmills with your arms. Standard, easy, boring. He did it anyway, and perfect as well. When they were asked to try and touch their toes, Damian put his entire hands on the ground in one fluid motion. Ms. Blue noticed right away.

“Wow, Damian. You are very flexible, aren’t you?”

“He has to be. His family skydives from rooftops to perform triple turns.” Billy. Of course.

Ms. Blue raised an eyebrow, but Damian stopped that rumor right away. “He´s exaggerating, my father simply values his children being active with their body.”

“That is very important”, Ms. Blue smiled as she went on through the rows of stretching kids. Damian was sure, if they would get grades for warming up, he would get an A.

The teacher proceeded her lesson by having the kids put up some flags on all four corners of the gym, then some cones in-between in very close distance, basically touching each other. Ms. Blue marked something down on her clipboard and sat down on the bench, then she explained the rules. Everyone started on the same flag, then they would run up and down the hall in a zigzag. With twelve minutes in total one had to go from the one side to the other. First to the flag, then to the cone on the other side, then to the cone that was on the other side again. One had to go as fast as they wanted, but if they had to take a pause than they had to stop wherever they were, and they weren’t allowed to start moving again until the time was over. At the end, she would make note of how far everyone came and what their current training level was.

Damian inspected the length he had to run, it was more than just doable for him. But Alfred had told him he wasn’t allowed to raise suspicions. Then again, he already told Ms. Blue that his father kept his family fit, and that hadn’t been a lie. So maybe he should go at a slow pace, not make it the entire way, since Ms. Blue seemed to believe that impossible for a ten-year-old anyway, but somewhere close to the end should definitely be believable. A piece of cake, really.

“Lets all run together”, Billy appeared at his side, of course with Aiden and Kitty. “We shouldn’t talk, or we will get out of breath, but we could keep together.”

“I won´t promise anything”, Damian answered and checked his shoelaces.

“Yeah, you will outrun as all. But we can still try and keep up, right guys?”

“Yeah”, Kitty and Aiden echoed.

“I want to run with Damian as well”, Amber, pulling another boy by the hand, appeared next to them.

“Why would you want that? Run with your own friends, Amber”, Billy crossed his arms and got in front of Damian.

“No way, you can´t keep him, we can run with whoever we want. Right Damian?”

“She can’t, right Damian?” Billy had no intention to back down.

“I really don’t care”, Damian ignored them both and got to the start.

Amber followed on his foot. “So I heard your entire family dives off of buildings. Are you all acrobats?”

“Some”, Damian replied vague.

“See”, Amber turned. “He talks to me, that means he wants me to run with him as well.”

What did it matter? They couldn’t keep up anyway, so why try.

Billy got on Damian´s free side. “You can’t keep up, you´re slow. Just wait till we run and you’ll see, right, Damian?” How did they drag him into this anyway?

Ms. Blue whistled, the children started running, and pretty soon Damian found that his slightly slowed down pace was still too fast. It seemed like a good idea that Billy had told them to run together, he simply fell back a little and matched his steps to the other boys. Surprisingly enough Amber was still keeping up with them. Kitty was only a few steps behind, pulling Aiden by the hand. Did Billy and Amber want Damian to pull them as well? Because he wouldn’t do that.

“Can´t believe your still here. Are you not dying already? Want to sit down now?”, Billy taunted Amber.

“I´ll show you endurance. You will meet your end at the next cone, then it´s only me and Damian.” Amber huffed loudly while talking. “Right, Damian?”

He didn’t bother to reply. Half the time had passed, a bunch of kids were already out. Strangely enough Billy and Amber showed no sign of wanting to stop just yet. At first Damian thought he might have misjudged how well-trained Billy was, then the boy suddenly stopped at the next cone that they passed and sank to the floor. Damian slowed down to nearly a snail pace.

“Stand up, Billy. Sitting isn’t good for your circulation.”

He might not have understood what was meant by that, but he followed Damian’s request anyway and settled for leaning against the wall.

“Ha, you see that, Damian? He was too weak to keep up with you. That means you will take me to watch you do the cartwheel off of rooftops. Right?”

That’s what this was about?

“Never. I am Damian´s best friend. If someone gets to see them jump it’s me!” Billy called after them, he sounded like he was dying. For a short moment Damian considered staying here with him, but there was still so much time left, he might as well use it.

“I beat him, that’s enough, right?”, Amber asked before falling to the ground halfway before the next cone.

“Stand up, its not good to sit now”, Damian merely replied and made a mental reminder to never tell Aiden anything interesting ever again. Or anyone else from his class for that matter. Or at least nothing suspicious, he couldn’t promise himself that he wouldn’t brag again.

 

“I knew I couldn’t keep up”, Billy awaited him on the bench when Damian returned from the pause. “But seeing as Amber only made it a few steps further I now feel bad she won. I could have done a few more steps as well.”

Judging from his condition back then Damian doubted that. Also, there was never a contest to win to begin with. “You did well until minute seven.”

“I just copied what you were doing. When I wanted to stop I just looked at your feet and told myself that you are still going on, so I should be able to do it as well. Also I really want to see you and your brothers synchronized roof jumps.”

Who kept adding these ridiculous details to his story? “Adopted”, murmured Damian as he sat down next to Billy and together they waited for Aiden and Kitty to pair up for the next training, running in a circle and jumping over foam.

If it were just Damian alone, he could have done it easily. But the exercise called for you to link arms with a partner and jump and jog together. No choosing partners on your own either, you got an assigned one from Ms. Blue. And he got Amber. He had seen her talking to Ms. Blue a minute earlier, surely she requested him. She wasn’t bad at the running, but Damian was extra slow anyway, it was more the synchronized jumps that they didn’t seem to be able to do right even once. Sports would not become his favorite any time soon.

“So, when do I get to see the show?”, she asked and Damian shut the attempts at conversation down right away. No talking and running or they would get out of breath too fast. Thankfully she accepted that.

 

Damian sat on a bench in front of the school and waited for Alfred to pull up with the car while getting his phone out.

“You can invite me whenever you want”, Amber called across the court.

“Ignore her”, Billy called from his other side as he climbed in his mother’s car.

Damian ignored both and checked for new messages. Tim had sent a copy of the gossip article about Todd into their group chat together with a `called it´. Of course he had already found out about these news.

The car came to a stop before him and Damian hurled himself inside, not caring that he was a little to dirty for the high-quality car seats. He hadn’t bothered to change after sport, it was the last class and he would proceed to train as soon as he got home anyway.

Alfred gave him a stare in the mirror again. “Master Damian, how would you like to just run the way?”

Damian sniffed his shirt. “I don’t smell bad. Also, last time you didn’t bring me home from school I got abducted by criminals and was held for ransom. I believe it hasn’t been that long since then?”

“The traffic delayed me merely by two minutes, by then you already climbed in their car.”

“He was pointing a gun at me, there were three of them and a camera in the car. If I wouldn’t have climbed in and just took them out right in front of the school I might as well put a sign around my neck reading: “I am indeed Robin”.”

“You are right, Master Damian, you did nothing wrong. I would still appreciate you riding this very expensive car in appropriate clothes.”

“Whatever.” It was silent for a few seconds. “Say Alfred, when are all my brothers visiting at the same time again? Some classmates of mine would be thrilled to see them do somersaults off a rooftop.”

Alfred did not seem amused. Then again, Damian could only see parts of his eyes in the mirror, not his mouth.


	7. Party

Alfred had picked up Cassandra from the airport in the early morning. At first, she had said that she would take a taxi, but Alfred had insisted on getting her himself. Cass wouldn’t spend a lot of time in Gotham, only two days to participate in the party. After Bruce had finalized the new partnership with the Chinese businessman, it was insisted upon that they would throw a party to celebrate the important event. Therefore the man was coming over to Gotham.

“It’s ridiculous”, Damian said as he turned on Bruce’s swivel chair in the study. “I mean, you had the meeting using that fancy new program he made just so he didn’t have to come over and talk in person, right? And now he is coming just for a party?”

“Surely he has other business overseas as well. That doesn’t change the fact that this party will be happening and you still need to come.”

“Why me? I get that he insists on the rest of your sons since he saw all of them in the chat, but I wasn’t even there. I might as well just stay at the manor and you don’t have to tell him that you have another son.”

Bruce was choosing a tie. “If shaking hands with all my kids is what makes him happy and give us his money, then so be it. Its just one evening, you have been to party’s before, you’ll survive this one.” He held a tie up. “What do you think of this one? Or rather a bowtie?”

Damian was excused from answering as two arms sneaked their way around Bruce’s chest, pulling him close from behind.

“We have arrived”, Alfred announced at the same time. Cass´s head appeared behind Bruce´s back and she smiled at Damian.

“Good to see you again”, she said and finally let go of Bruce to go ruffle Damian´s hair. He tried to avoid her hand, she managed to catch him anyway. “Take the tie”, she said, glancing at Bruce´s hands. “Mr. Chang has expressed a dislike against bowties, they are unprofessional, he said.”

Bruce threw the tie carelessly on his shelf and put the bowtie around his neck. “Well then it is a shame that I prefer the bowtie, isn’t it?”

Cass gave thumbs up, Damian couldn’t care less. As long as his father wouldn’t suck up to some foreign businessman he couldn’t care less what he wore.

“What about you, Damian? Do you already have something to wear?”

“Of course I do, father has provided me with more than enough suits to wear.”

“Great, then we will only have to go shop for a dress for me. Get the car Alfred, we´re going out again.”

“Hey, wait a second, we will shop for a dress? Are you trying to make me go along with you on a –“

Cass didn’t let him finish. She had already gotten a hold of his hand and pulled Damian out of the chair. “It will be fun, you can advise me”, she said and blew Bruce a quick kiss as she headed for the door.

 

Some text messages and thirty minutes later Alfred let Damian, Cass, Tim and Dick out of the car. Cass had insisted of taking the rest of her brothers as well, since they should spend as much time together as possible. They pad picked up Tim on the way and nearly rolled over Dick as he jumped in front of the car as they passed him on some street a few minutes prior. He had wanted to meet them here, but happened to see their car pass by. So all that was missing was Jason. Damian wouldn’t have thought it this easy to convince Jason to go shopping, but as it turned out his older brother claimed he had no more suits to wear, so he had already been in the city looking for a good store.

“I´m surprised you wanted to go get a suit on your own. Surely I suspected you would show up to the party in your regular clothes.” Tim typed on his phone as they all trailed behind Cass into the next best shop to find Jason a tuxedo. They had decided to do him first, since it would probably be faster then finding Cass a dress.

“Wow, you really thought that of me, Timmy? I´d never embarrass our father like that in front of important guests, would I?” There was a certain tone in Jason’s voice that told Damian that his brother was up to no good. The suspicions were confirmed once they entered the store and Jason took the lead, straight up curving every suit that looked even half decent just to get to the one that hung from the wall at the end of the lane. “I´ll take this one.”

Jason took it down and held the bright pink Victorian age style suit in front of himself. “In this I´ll surely be the life of the party”, he said with a bright smile.

“I can confirm that all eyes will be on you”, Dick lifted one eyebrow and mustered the clothing. “I am also sure that Alfred will never allow you to enter the party like this.”

“You´re just jealous that your clothes won´t be this cool. Here”, Jason took a second suit from one of the rags. Bright yellow and littered with sparkling stones. “Take this and we´ll go partner look.”

“Although I´d love for you to wear this, I´m with Dick on this one. We need to lay some ground rules for your suit, Jason.” Cass took the clothes from his hands hand hung them back where they belonged. “First off, please stay with styles that are generally accepted as belonging into our era. Second, only colors that can’t be found on the color spectrum. Take white, gray, or preferably black. Does that seem doable?”

Jason took one look to the right, spotting the suit with zebra stripes. “Sure, lets go by your rules.” He went to get it.

“Can’t argue with that”, Cass said. “He kept to the rules”, she smiled as she followed after him to marvel at his new choice.

“Dick”, Damian watched them, his eyes nearly stuck in a permanent eyeroll. “Please tell me you will be responsible and stop them.”

Dick was already on the way, pulling a suit out of a row and holding the ugly thing with cow spots high in the air. “I´ll take this one. Let’s find one with tiger stripes in Damian´s size.”

“Oh great”, Tim sighed.

“Tim gets leopard spots”, Cass called while going through the options.

“What kind of stupid store is this anyway”, Damian started walking towards his siblings to get all the suits out of their hands, they wouldn’t make fools of themselves in front of his father tonight, all Todd had to do was find one normal suit. There were enough of those on the other side of the store, problem was getting Todd to go there and actually take one.

They didn’t manage to get him out of the wrong aisle until the three chaos siblings had found all the right suits, even one looking like a penguin for Cass.

“If they have it a few sizes larger I know who we could give one to”, she said as she came out of the dressing room and looked at herself in the mirror.

Damian stumbled out of his cabin, his suit was to big for him, not made for a child. His brothers still had insisted he would wear it, just once at least. “We won´t gift the Penguin anything.” He stood next to Cass, trying to get his sleeves far enough back to be able to use his hands again.

“Well, I think that sounds like a great idea”, Jason came out, wearing his zebra stripes. “Miss”, he called after the store clerk that had been eyeing them skeptically ever since they started looking through the suits and giggling. She approached them carefully as Tim and Dick stepped out. “Take this”, Jason passed her his phone and pulled his siblings in a line next to him. “Now everyone say party”.

It kept Jason busy long enough to send the photo to all his contacts that they could change back out of the suits and make him go to the aisle that stored the normal ones. He was far less enthusiastic in choosing one over here, settling for the first one that Dick passed to him with a pout, not even bothering to try and put it on. “The label says its big enough”, he argued and purchased it.

The store clerk seemed happy to see them leave.

“That was fun, we need to repeat that with the dresses”, Cass took the lead again as she made the way towards a dress shop.

Dick seemed far too happy at this suggestion, Damian decided.

 

If they had thought the suit store had too much ridiculous options, that was nothing against what this shop had to offer.

“This one makes you look like a fried egg”, Dick pulled it out and presented it to Cass. In return, she held up a dress that was cut to look like a slice of pizza, just brighter colors.

“You are all childish”, Damian murmured and pulled a dress, light blue, sleeveless and long but open for the legs. “There you go”, he spoke up. “Take this and then we will leave.”

Cass came over, inspecting it. “You are right, that isn’t bad. But I raise you”, she pulled out the dress she had held behind her back. “The purple rug dress. What do you say now?”

“Ugly.”

“Alright guys, I found the next group picture”, Dick came around the corner, holding five dresses in the colors of the rainbow. All cut similar to a tutu, barely having something to call a skirt, but made out of nothing but fluffy, featherlike material. “Damian, you get the green one”, Dick passed it to him. “It matches your eyes.”

He grabbed as many siblings as he could still reach with one hand and began pushing them towards the changing rooms.

“Never. Never ever will I wear that. You and Jason can do that, you are used to showing of your legs. I won’t put that on”, Damian tried to get away from Dick, but his older brother got help from Cass.

“I agree with Damian”, Tim made no attempts to escape, but he still didn’t seem happy with the situation.

“Tell you what”, Cass said. “If you put it on I´ll take the dress that Damian suggested and we can go home. If you don´t do it, I´ll take my sweet sweet time trying on every dress in this store and getting all of your opinions. Does that sound like a better idea?”

They put the dresses on. But Damian made sure too put the manliest facial expression on as the photo was made. Tim had just given up. Between them, Jason, Dick and Cass posed like Charlies angels. Damian decided that his mother could never ever see the photos that were now on Todd´s phone. He would make sure of it.

 

“We just got here and I´m bored already”, Jason pulled on his tie as they entered the party room. “That’s not what I call a party. I´m dead, why do I need to be here anyway.”

“Shut it, `Jacob´. As far as we are concerned, you never died”, Dick pushed him forwards into the room. “It´s your fault, if you hadn’t answered the call the man would have never seen you.”

“Then isn’t it your fault for adding me to the call in the first place?”

Dick ignored that remark and left the group to be the first to approach Mr. Chang and offer him a handshake, his siblings followed reluctantly.

“That is my first son”, Bruce stood next to Mr. Chang and introduced Dick to him.

“Richard Grayson-Wayne, but you may call me Dick, Sir.”

The man gave a quick, shocked glance at Bruce before answering with thick accent. “I´d prefer to not call you that, thank you.”

Jason took a step aside and winked Jason over as the next. He sighed, but came anyway. “Hello, I´m a good friend of Dick, Jacob Tasto.”

“Oh, just a friend”, Mr. Chang looked at Bruce. “As I saw him I assumed he was another one of your children.”

Bruce laughed his typical business laugh. “Yeah, people often assume that.” With that, the topic was closed and Tim approached fast before Mr. Chang could ask more questions.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne, a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Mister Drake. I see you were the one working at Wayne Enterprises as well?”

“No, I was just helping out that day.”

“And you put that much trust in him?”, Mr. Chang looked to Bruce. “He has been reading some important documents, hasn’t he? You sure trust your children a lot, Mr. Wayne.”

“I do”, Bruce winked for Cass and Damian to come closer. “So anyway, that’s my only daughter right here.”

“Ah, should I kiss your hand now?”, Mr. Chang laughed as he held his hand out, ready to take hers.

“No need, Sir. My name is Cassandra Cain-Wayne.” She shook his hand, letting go before he could get some new idea to greet ger and quickly passed the torch to Damian.

“Damian Wayne”, he gave a firm handshake before taking a step back again.

Mr. Chang took a good look over all members of the Wayne family. “Ah, it is nice to see such a big, mannered family. I´d say you raised them well, Mr. Wayne”, he nodded towards Bruce approvingly. “It is important to me to make business with men like you. Good men.”

“And it is an honor to do business with you, Mr. Chang. Would you like to grab something to drink and maybe talk a little?”, Bruce pointed him towards the waiter currently serving Champagne and sparkling water for those that wouldn’t drink.

“You that are underage keep to the water, is that clear”, Bruce turned to his children before leaving, glaring especially long at Damian. “Also, no shenanigans, just act grown up for two hours, then you can excuse yourselves and leave. Can you do that?”

A collectively murmured “Yes, dad”, came back at him, then he turned to leave with Mr. Chang.

“We won’t behave, will we?”, Jason asked as soon as he was gone far enough.

“Mr. Chang seems to value good manners, it would be better if we did. Not that I´d believe in all of you”, Tim answered, and Damian agreed in his head.

“We need to amuse ourselves”, Cass got in front of her brothers. “I haven’t seen you in so long, we need to do something fun together. We all.”

 

“Well, I talked to this group of peers over there, they were discussing the rising stock market of gold, so I decided to give up on that whole “conversation” thing. What were you up to?”, Jason made himself some space between Dick and Cass at the standing table.

“We are playing the most boring round of “I spy” that has ever been played”, Damian answered, sipping at his sparkling water.

“We have to keep ourselves busy somehow.” Dick shrugged. “Cass, repeat your riddle, then Jason can participate.”

“Who said I wanted to”, Jason murmured, but he was drowned out by Cass´s voice.

“Well, I currently spy with my little eye something that is golden. Any idea?”

Jason took a long sip of his glass. “The wallpaper.”

“No.”

“That woman’s dress.”

“No.”

“That other woman’s dress.”

“Nope.”

“The skirt of that woman.”

“Which one?”

“She´s over there, next to the one in the red dress.”

“Jason, I can spot at least five red dresses right now. So, no.”

“Well, this game is stupid”, Jason rolled his eyes. “Technically I won, I spotted enough golden things right.”

“Well, it was the chandelier, if you wanted to know. This is not how the game works”, Cass pretended to sulk. “Now you do it.”

“Yeah, I´ll show you how to play this.” Jason looked around for a few seconds. “I spy with my little eye a little demon scooting down some stairs on his bottom.”

“I found the demon, does that count as a win?”, Tim pointed at Damian, the boy swapped his hand away.

“It doesn’t work like this either, Jason. That is nothing you spy, it´s a dare.” Damian crossed his arms.

“And you chicken out of it. Seems like you are to big a weakling to play a game of “I spy”, right?” Now Jason had done it.

“Fine, Todd. But remember, it was your idea.” And off Damian was.

“I don’t think this is going to end well”, Dick whispered in his glass.

“No, but it will be more amusing then standing here for two more hours”, Tim had pocketed his phone.

“You say that now, but wait until they will dare you”, Dick answered as he followed his little brother with his eyes.

Damian jogged up the stairs and looked around a few seconds, before sitting down and scooting down three steps. Then he got back up and hurried to his brothers.

“Let´s hope no one saw that”, he looked at his siblings. “Okay, my turn. I spy with my little eye Cass lying on the ground for at least five seconds.”

“Easy”, his sister said and left the table. She took a few steps, passing a careless group of talking middle aged men in the progress. One of them had his foot turned at a ninety-degree angle while chatting. Cass used this in the passing and made sure to knock against his foot before dramatically falling to the ground and lying flat. The men took notice immediately and hurried to surround her and see if she was alright. Her brothers all counted in their heads to five, then she lifted her head and gave the men a reassuring smile. “Stupid shoes, I don’t wear heels often”, they heard her say before she stood back up like nothing happened and left some stunned men behind as she came back. “A child’s play”, she said, her brothers clapped for the performance, she bowed a little.

“Alright”, she turned to Dick. “I spy with my little eye Dick Grayson going over there to this group of Ladies announcing “Call me dick” and then leaving without saying anything else.”

“That’s no dare”, Dick smiled. “That’s my daily life. I bet you I will be coming back with all of their numbers.”

“They are like thirty years older than you. At least”, Tim noted but Dick just shrugged.

“My charm has no age limit.”

“I sure hope it does, Mister Pedophile.” Jason called after him as he left. Some patrons turned into their direction as they heard his remark.

Tim sighed. “Whoever dares Jason, don’t chose something he will have to say out loud, he will do it with no shame.”

Jason replied with finger guns.

At the same time Dick had arrived at the group of ladies, clearing his throats and making sure he spoke loud enough for his brother still to hear. “Call me Dick”, he said with a straight face, bowing a little. His siblings suppressed grins as they saw the slightly scandalized faces of the ladies. But Dick didn’t let himself get bothered by it. He nodded to all of them, then turned on his heel and returned to the table of totally not giggling siblings.

“I will not defend you if you´ll get kicked out for public indecency in a few minutes.” Tim told him, Dick could accept that.

“Alright, my turn”, he locked eyes with Jason. “I spy with my little eye a Jason that will approach this woman over there crying about how he is adopted.”

Jason downed his glass. “Yes can do, Sir.”

He didn’t even think twice before approaching the woman in her fifties standing currently alone in the middle of the room. Crying on command wasn’t hard for Jason, he could pull it off rather well. As soon as he felt that he had perfected his distressed face he stumbled right into the arms of the surprised woman, hugging her arm and sniffling: “I was adopted”, while looking up to her with teary eyes. She was shocked.

“I just found it out. I have been adopted”, he sobbed franticly. She hesitated a little, then used her free hand to pat his head softly.

“I´m sorry?”, she asked more then actually saying it, and Jason stepped up his game

“My mommy and daddy didn’t want me, they gave me away. Did they hate me? Is that why I´m adopted?”

The woman looked ready to faint. “Ah, everything’s alright?”, she kept petting his head carefully.

“It is?”, he stopped crying immediately. “Really? Everything’s alright? Wow, I never thought about it that way.” He let go off her and straightened himself. “Thank you, Ma´am, you really helped me there.” Then he turned and left.

As he came back, followed by the perplex stare of the woman, Tim looked ready to cry himself. “You are all horrible people”, he said, shaking his head and trying not to think about the fact that he could see his father across the room. Thankfully he was far enough away from them.

“Though luck there, Timbo.” Jason said. “Because I spy with my little eye how a certain Tim is approaching the champagne tower over there and taking a glass from the bottom.”

“You can’t do that, Jason. It will fall.” Tim looked at him horrified.

“Ha, Tim is chickening out of a game of “I spy”.” Damian laughed.

“It doesn’t have to fall, you´d have to have really bad luck for it to crash”, Dick inspected the high champagne tower in the center of the room.

“If you won´t do it I will”, Cass offered, but Tim wouldn’t take her up on that.

“I´ll do it, but if it will work out I can guarantee I´ll find a way to dare Dick to swing on that chandelier.”

“And I´ll do it”, Dick called after him as Tim left towards the champagne tower.

He stood in front of it, deciding on a glass in the lowest row. As he stretched out his hand and took hold of the glass, for a split second he looked up and locked eyes with his father on the other side of the room. That distracted him not for long, but the short moment it did was enough for his hand to only make one wrong movement, and in the next second the entire over one-meter high tower came crashing down in front of him.

As he stood in front of it and looked at the shards he could hear his siblings laughing in the background. It was hard not to hear them, or, well, actually mostly Jason, since the rest of the room was silent. And Tim was still looking at his father. Bruce looked very tired all of a sudden.


	8. Media

“Thank you all for coming here”, Bruce started the conference, all the reporter’s eyes were on him. “I know what you all came for today, so I won’t take any more of your time. My son Jason has really come back into our lives.”

Uproar.

“You know”, Damian leaned over to whisper to Dick. “At least this took the eyes off the fact that Tim destroyed the tower. So that’s something good, right?”

Dick didn’t answer, just patted his little brother´s shoulder as an acknowledgement. They knew they had messed up, but it wasn’t entirely they’re fault. The party was supposed to be off limits for reports, but somehow one still made it inside. As Tim ruined the tower she took a photo. Unfortunately, in the background one could see a still believed-to-be-dead Jason laughing with his brothers at the table. With the picture and the description of the boy of which the kidnappers had talked about the media figured out very quickly who he was, and now Bruce was forced to give an official statement.

“For further questions”, Bruce went on. “You can just ask him yourself.” He took a step to the side and revealed Jason coming out from behind, passing his brothers and sister to get to the podium.

“Hello”, he waved half-heartedly, then cleared his throat. “So, yeah. I´m alive, I´m back.” Silence, some cameras went off. “Any follow-up questions to that?”

All hands went up, Jason still took his time to pick someone, as if he had to make a though decision. “You”, he finally said.

“How long have you been back?”

Jason tipped back his head, swayed from one side to the other, then pretended to count on his hand. “A little while, but not that long.”

That was an unbelievable vague answer. Bruce felt like covering his head with his hands.

Jason picked the next person.

“Would you like to elaborate on that?”

“No”, Jason shot him down right away. “I haven’t been counting days. Just write down whatever you want, that’s as specific as it will get.”

“Mister Todd, why have you only told the public just now?”

Tax benefits. He probably couldn’t say that without getting in trouble, so he chose one of the standard answers that Bruce had told him to say beforehand. “Because I wasn’t ready yet and wanted to spend some private time with my family first.” He might as well have been a robot reading off a script. Not that he cared though.

“How did you come back alive?”

“Magic.” Jason put his head on his hands on the lectern. “I mean, in the world we live in with all the aliens and so on someone coming back from the dead shouldn’t be the least believable. Someone must have used my body as an experiment and brought me back in the progress. Is that enough info?”

The hands shot up again.

“Did you notice any physical changes after coming back?”

“I got this cool looking white hair now. Looks good on me, right?”

“Is there a life after death?”, someone asked.

Jason sighed. “I wanted some compliments, not get into a debate about religion.” The reporters looked at him with big eyes. “Alright, fine. No, there is nothing I would remember. Let’s get back to some less risky topics.”

“So, you believe that in the close future there will be no death anymore? Everyone can be brought back?”

“Geez, dude, I asked for lighter topics. Oh man.” He made some smacking noises with his mouth. “I don’t, probably not. If it was that easy then someone would already sell that way as a product, right?”

They kept writing in their notebooks.

“Why, out of all the possible options, were you brought back? What is so special about you?”

Jason laughed. “Well, I could talk all day about how special I am, but the reason you are searching for would be my dear old father over there”, Jason stretched and pulled Bruce over on his sleeve. “They got me back to get some money out of my old man, but that didn’t work. Batman freed me from the bastards before they got the money and I was returned to my family. And might I just add, Batman is not as cool as you all seem to think he is. I saw him pick his nose.” Bruce had told him what to answer to this question as well, the last part was improvised though.

“And we are so happy to have him back”, Bruce forced his media-smile and put a hand around his son, giving him some hard pets, then he winked for all his other children to come over. “Anyway, I guess that should have been enough questions for now. We would like to end the conference now. Please excuse us.” Bruce took as many of his children as he could grab with him and pulled them backstage.

He surrounded himself with his kids, then looked at them with a strict gaze. “In the next weeks we are all going to be followed around and get swarmed by paparazzi, just don’t talk to them, ignore them and sooner or later they´ll disappear, alright?”

 

Going to school was hell for Damian, but it was even worse the next morning. Alfred got out of the car with him and shielded the boy as he brought him the few steps onto the school’s property were paparazzi weren’t allowed.

“Have fun in school, Master Damian”, he said as he sent him off.

Damian turned and saw how they gave Alfred a hard time going back to the car. “Hey”, he called out and they stopped dead in their track, giving way for Alfred. “Stop bothering me”, Damian went on. “Hell, I didn’t even now Todd before he came back from the dead. I already have enough brothers, I didn’t even notice him when he first got back.” That had been enough time for Alfred to get in the car, Damian´s job here was done.  
“I should just pull a Tim and stay inside for a week”, Damian murmured to himself as he turned and left the shouting reporters behind.

 

“Mister Grayson, just one comment”, the reporters called after him as Dick jogged down the streets. Alfred had told him to just stay inside if he could for the time being, but Dick had noticed how the reporters were camping outside the manor all day, not wanting to leave to not miss a scoop. It seemed unhealthy for Dick to just sit outside the gate all day, so he had gotten his trainings clothes, opened the gate and jogged outside, right past the stunned reporters. It only took them a few seconds to jump into action and begin to chase after him with their cameras and pens. He was even jogging slower then he could, so they would be able to keep up. And this was how ended up leading the group in a circle for half an hour before coming to a stop in front of Wayne manor again, stretching a little. Slowly the reporters came to the goal as well, falling panting into their chairs.

“You should stretch a little”, Dick told them. “That’s good after jogging.”

“Please”, the reporter brought out. “Just tell us how you feel about your brother being back.”

Some more reporters came collapsing back at their camp.

“Oh, I have of course missed him a lot, I´m glad he´s back, my itsy-bitsy deary-weary little weeny Jayjay-birdy needs a lot of petting though, so sometimes he´s a bit tiring. You can quote me on that”, he gave them thumbs up and disappeared back behind the walls.

 

“What do you plan on doing with your life now that you have it back?”

“I don’t know. Whatever I want I guess”, Jason was caught by some paparazzi as he went out to go shopping. They followed him into the market, so he had decided that they could make themselves useful while being here. He pressed his basket into one of the paparazzi’s hand and had a second go pick up some milk from the other shelf while he looked at the selection of bread. “The one with the grain or plain white?”, he asked the reporter with the still free hands.

“The one with grains is better for you”, she said, and he picked the white one, tossing it in the basket the other reporter held. The third one finally came back with the milk, so it was time to move on to the meat section.

“Are you planning on working at your fathers’ company now?”, one asked as Jason stopped next to the pizza.

He laughed. “No, certainly not. By the way, he still has to apologize for being irresponsible and letting a reporter come into the venue for the party. You can write that, and add that I only accept cash or kneeling and begging as a suitable way of apologizing. Salami or ham?”

“Salami.” “Salami.” “Ham.”

“Both it is”, he tossed them in the basket and they moved on.

 

“Miss Cain, a statement please”, they had followed Cass all the way to the airport. If it went on like that at least one might accidently get onto her flight back to China as well.

“What plane are you taking, Miss Cain?” Alright, it seemed she was really in danger of getting caught in a plane for a few hours with one of these paparazzi. Only over her dead body.

She got her phone out and dialed. “Bruce, I will borrow a private jet from you, yeah?”

“Mister Wayne, please tell us how you feel about you resurrected son”, someone screamed into her phone from behind her.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, take it”, Bruce said, and Cass changed her course in a new direction.

“Just one statement, Miss Cain”, the reporters had no intention of going away, and they were pulling on her nerves. She stopped abruptly and turned on her heel.

“Fine, you may print that.”

 

The next day as Bruce took a look at the news he was greeted by quiet some new information on his son, but also by a photo of Cass, at the airport. On foot raised, the head leaned to the side making a kissy face. Her one raised hand was blurred though, and Bruce could imagine why.

 

“Mister Drake, I knew it was you.” A reporter invited himself to sit with Tim in the café and fell on the free chair. Tim reminded himself to call Clark Kent later, he would have to tell him that putting on a hat and sunglasses had not been enough to mask his identity.

“I won’t give you any statements on my brother”, he rolled his eyes, but the reporter couldn’t see it through the glasses anyway.

“I know, that’s not what I´m asking for. I was hoping for a statement on your recent misstep.”

“Which one?”, Tim squinted. He should probably take of the sunglasses.

“Well, I was writing an article about your faulty behavior as you knocked over the champagne at the party-“

Tim downed his coffee and stood up, leaning over the table and pulling down his sunglasses enough to reveal his piercing gaze. “That never happened, you hear me? Never. Happened.” He pulled the hat deeper as he headed away. No way he was letting someone pull up that story, this mistake getting buried was, after all, the only good thing that had come out off Jason being revealed to the public. And buried it should remain.


	9. Rain

This was not how either of them had planned for their day to go. Tim came to the manor in the morning, he hadn’t planned on staying long, but it wasn’t like he had anything to do until the sun would set either. So of course he ran into Damian, it was Saturday after all so the boy wasn’t at school. Naturally, the two meeting ended in a new quarrel, and it didn’t take them long until Tim had Damian chase him through the manor, leading the two into the kitchen were, accidently, they managed to knock Alfred’s freshly baked cake from the counter, cream splattering all over the tiles.

They were still staring at the mess when Alfred came into the kitchen.

One hour later, both the boys were sitting in a boat on the lake with their fishing rods, they could only return to the manor if they brought back two fresh fish for Alfred to prepare as their dinner. Tim first believed that he couldn’t get punished, seeing as he didn’t live at the manor anymore. He had thought wrong, because Alfred kept his keys and the documents that Tim had come over to get in the first place. Also, it was Alfred. Tim didn’t want to try and see what happened if he didn’t do what the butler had told them to.

“Fish faster, Drake. I can see some dark clouds approaching”, Damian rocked the boat a little as he got into a new position.

“You fish faster. Nothing bites even if you tell it to. Although you could try some new bait and maybe they come. I say we dunk your face in the water. If I were a fish I would most certainly want to bite that.” Tim pulled his hat down further, he was sure if they stayed much longer he would get sunburned.

“Oh shut up. It´s your fault that we are here in the first place. If you wouldn’t have provoked me-“

“You were the one that knocked the cake down.”

“And whose fault is it that we were in the kitchen in the first place?”

Both boys slowly abandoned their fishing rods as they turned to face each other.

“Well”, Tim poked Damian´s chest. “You ran after me, isn’t that right?”

“Because you…”, Damian stopped as a rain drop landed on his cheek. He looked up, Tim followed his gaze. It didn’t take long until the next drop fell, then quiet a few more. “Oh great.”

They both went to grab the oars at the same time, their gazes met as their hands landed on top of each other. “I am stronger, I´ll bring as back to shore faster”, Tim strengthened his grip on the wood.

“As if, I am faster than you”, Damian didn’t let go either, the drops started falling harder. Damian´s gaze went to the sky, then to Tim and his clothes that were already staining from the rain. Then he let go. “Fine, whatever. But go fast.”

Tim raised an eyebrow, eying his littler brother suspiciously. He hadn’t expected to win this argument this quickly. He started rowing right away anyway. He didn’t want to get caught in the rain either.

As soon as they were close enough to the shore Damian jumped out of the boat into the water before Tim could and started pulling it on the shore.

“It´s raining already, and you are stupid enough to try and get wet faster? Did the sun burn your braincells? That’s what you get for refusing to wear a hat just cause it `looks stupid´.” Tim jumped out of the boat and looked at Damian´s wet legs.

“Who cares, wet now or wet in a few seconds no difference. Also, I was right, you look stupid in that had. Then again, maybe it´s just because you always look like this.”, the younger simply replied and started the walk that would lead them to the manor sooner or later.

Mother Nature wasn’t on their side, they only made it half the way and the rain got stronger with every second. They were wet to the bone already when Damian decided to change course a little.

“Wrong turn, dummy”, Tim looked after him as the boy took the new path.

“Your dumb if you think we´ll still get back before dying. We can’t go on in this weather, there is a small cabin over there, we will wait until the storm passed.”

Tim didn’t want to argue with that, he was cold and shaking already, his nose had begun running a few minutes ago. Surely he would come down with something, especially with his weak immune system.

“It´s right over there”, Damian pointed somewhere between the trees and looked back at Tim. As he saw his brother hugging himself to keep at least a little warm he fell back and shed his jacket, throwing it over Tim’s shoulders and hurrying him towards the cabin.

The boys stumbled through the door and in the dusty, cold room. It was by no means a comfy environment, but everything was better then being outside. Damian was already studying the single room, a bed in one corner, a table in the middle of the room, two shelfs and a fireplace with an armchair. That was all.

Tim let Damian´s jacket fall to the floor. When he was given it outside it felt warm, but now it was just another cold, wet layer on his skin.

Damian rummaged through the shelfs, pulling out an old, black robe out of some place. He shook it and another coat made from dust fell from the first one to the floor.

“What a cozy place”, Tim murmured and made his way towards the armchair.

“Hey, wait”, Damian stopped him before he sat down and pressed the robe into his hands. “Your brain must have gotten frozen, or what. Put that on, it’s dry.” Tim raised his brows. Tim’s well-being didn’t seem like something Damian would physically be able to be concerned about. “I don’t want you to ruin the armchair, alright? One of will have to sleep on it if we must stay longer, and I for one wouldn’t want to lay in a wet place. Restart your goddamn brain, Drake.”

Damian turned back around again and kept on looking through the shelfs. Tim looked at the single bed on the wall and sighed, then he peeled his wet clothes from his skin.

“Here we go”, Damian took a lighter out of some old box he had found and turned to the fireplace. Then he turned right back around again. “Drake, at least warn me when you aren’t wearing any clothes, would you? No one wants to see that.”

Tim ignored his remark and tied the robe, then fell into the armchair and sniffled a little. “Don’t be a prude, your just jealous that you don’t have this body.” He pulled down his collar a little.

Damian made a puking motion as he passed him to look at the fireplace. There was still a little bit of old, now dry wood next to it, he could make use of that. “Stop being lazy, pass me the sticks that you deem good enough for starting a fire.”

Tim tried to stand, but as soon as he tried his vision blacked out and his leg got caught on the edge of the armchair, causing him to fall right in front of the pile of sticks.  


“Would you look at that, has someone been doing nothing for too long?”, Damian leaned over and took a close look at Tim´s face, it didn’t seem like he was injured.

“I don’t know what you believe to have seen, I didn’t fall. I was attacking the floor”, Tim tried getting the new dust away from the old dust on his robe, but gave up as he didn’t succeed.

“Sure you did, Cinderella. Pass me those sticks.”

If looks could kill Tim would have began to follow Jason down his path.

 

Damian got the fire started on his second attempt. He put some more sticks in it and decided to call it a day. Tim was already back in the armchair, still with a red nose and half-closed eyes. Damian suspected it was probably impossible for him to not come down with something now, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to keep him healthy. He wasn’t worried or anything, it was just that Alfred and Bruce wouldn’t let him leave the manor if he was sick, and Damian really didn’t want to have to deal with Drake much longer then he had to.

Damian pulled his phone out and checked if he had any way of contacting someone, but the phone had no reception, so he gave up on that plan and settled for simply checking the time instead. Eight in the evening and the rain showed no signs of stopping. Damian went back to the shelfs to check for some food, but all he could find were some old, hopefully not expired crackers.

“That’s what we get for not being able to catch a fish”, he sighed and tried one of the crackers. A bit mushier than usual, but not as horrible as he had thought.

“Well, if you wouldn’t have tried to pick a fight all the time and made it possible for us to concentrate then maybe we would have caught some.” Tims sassy words didn’t come out as sharp as he wanted them too, he blamed the stuffed nose. “We´ll need more wood for the night”, Tim stared in the flames, if he couldn’t have a serious fight with the little demon then he had to find something new to keep him busy. He got up, swayed a little, and set out for the door. Instead of grabbing the door handle though his hand closed around a box of crackers instead that Damian pushed in his hand.

“We sure do, so I´ll go get it. You go sit back down and be less sick, all right? You´re constant sniffling and sneezing is getting onto my nerves even more then the words that usually come out of your mouth.”

“Oooh, is someone worried about me?”, Tim cooed at him.

“No, but your health is damaged, and I´m a decent human, one shouldn’t pick on the weak. So just sit down and shut up, I´ll be back in a few minutes.”

Tim dragged himself back to the fire. “For someone that tried to kill me you sure are worried about my health.”

“I can’t hear you over the sound of how responsible I am being”, Damian shouted back as he left the cabin.

 

When he came back and put the sticks down to dry he noticed with a roll if his eyes that Tim had already munched down all the crackers. “Typical”, he said as he kicked the now empty box out of the way. “Get up, Drake, I´ll have to rearrange the interior design.” He pulled at his brother.

“Why? Is the Feng Shui not good enough for you?”, Tim stood up reluctantly and took notice of his wet and dripping brother that started pulling the armchair a little further away from the fire. Tim had really tried to not feel compassion for the little demon, but seeing the walking rain drop pushing the bed closer to the fireplace he couldn’t suppress the small seed blooming in his black heart any longer.

Tim pulled the robe closer around himself and went through the shelfs like Damian did before him, finding a few old blankets in the process. He tried to shake them a little but gave up as all the dust greeted him. “Clean enough”, he murmured and hauled the blankets at his brother that was just inspecting his work at relocating the bed hard enough so that the unprepared boy fell face first on the mattress. “Touchdown”, he pushed Damian´s face back down as he was just about to get back down. “Get out of these wet clothes, your endless dripping will put out the fire sooner or later.” Tim fell on the bed next to Damian´s face. As soon as he felt the impact he wished he had waited with laying down as he got a face full of dust. Bad idea, he coughed.

“Who said you would get the bed? I already did enough for you today, least you could do is give it to me”, Damian lifted his head and his angry gaze met Tim. He turned and wiggled out of his wet clothes, then rolled himself up in the blankets, trying not to think about how dirty they were.

“Don’t be such a weakling”, Tim pulled on Damian´s arm, getting his body a few centimeters higher up on the mattress. Of course the movement made all the dust go back into the air and send both of the brothers into a coughing fit.

“I won’t share a bed with you, Drake.”

“Sharing is caring, and you already cared a lot for us today. So I decided to be forgiving and put up with your troublesome existence for a few hours and only resume with hating you when we get out of here again.”

“A truce?”, Damian asked, making no attempt to get out of the bed.

“Sure why not”, Tim pulled the blankets closer to himself and closed his eyes. “I haven’t forgiven you anything, though. Keep that in mind.”

“Are you trying to insinuate that you might try an assassination attempt using the poker from the fireplace in about three to four hours when you think I´m sleeping deep enough already to not put up that big of a fight?”

“Should I be worried about the amount of thought that went into that plan?”, Tim reached out with his hand to kick the poker further away from the bed and out of reach for both of them.

“Nooo”, Damian drew that word out a little to long for Tim´s liking. “I was just asking.”

Tim sat up, grabbing a spare pillow he found at the foot of the bed and put it between himself and Damian, then he got underneath the only blanket that was not already wrapped around burrito Damian. “Lets just sleep before I stop believing you.”

“What made you ever believe me in the first place”, Damian whispered into his blankets.

“Okay, can we go to sleep now? Or are you unable to as long as the light is still on. And here I thought little kids needed their light at night to keep the scary monsters away”, Tim turned his back on Damian to look at the small flames.

“Oh please”, Damian tried to kick Tim through his blankets, but didn’t manage to succeed. “I´ve never been afraid of ugly monsters, after all I´m currently even sharing a bed with one.”

Tim caught the kicking leg underneath his and held it down. “Shut up and sleep, demon, or I´ll show you how well this monster can sleep while sitting on your face.”

“Yeah, hate you too, Drake”, Damian gave back, but he was missing the sharp edge in his voice.

Tim decided he would probably survive a single night in the such close proximity to his brother, so he might as well share the bed with the demon for a single night. He sniffled into his robe as he made a mental reminder to never bring this situation up in the future, surely Damian would neither. No one could ever know of this.

 

“You wouldn’t believe it, Alfred, but I found a new phone background again”, Bruce leaned over the bed, getting a few snapshots with his phone.

“What a surprise, Master Bruce.” Alfred sounded many things, surprised wasn’t one of them. Actually, monotone would describe it the best.

“Father?”, Damian opened one eye, looking up at the quickly disappearing phone camera. “You found us.”

“Tracked your phones when you didn’t come back yesterday.” Bruce replied nonchalantly while looking around the cabin. “Luckily you found this place. I believe it might even belong to the Wayne family. Doesn’t it, Alfred?”

“It does, Master Bruce. An old hunting cabin. Should we get ready to leave now? The breakfast at the manor will get cold soon. I have made waffles for you”, he said in the boys direction, that prompted Tim to finally open his eyes.

“And coffee?”, he asked and Alfred nodded.

“Of course, Master Tim.”

He got up in record time and gathered his clothes, ignoring the stares at his new robe. Damian moved a little slower, he had a headache.

Bruce leaned over him and pressed his hand carefully against Damian´s forehead. “It seems you have a fever, Damian.”

“Great”, Damian looked over at Tim, already on the threshold. Of course his brother was the one who managed to remain healthy.


	10. Visit

Jason had to get away. It was hard, taking a step outside with his current paparazzi situation. A lot of them had already left, went to chase after the next big story, but a few still trailed him, and by now he had gotten really tired of their behavior. He decided to put an end to it himself and disappear for a while. Since he was too lazy to go far away or find himself a nice place to stay it didn't take long for him to decide where he was going.

A few hours later it knocked on Dick Grayson's home, the sun wasn't even up yet so neither was occupant. The boy inside had only gotten home one hour ago and he had actually hoped to get a little more sleep. Not that the universe had granted such a wish. Slowly he made his way towards the noise, scraping the stuff out of his eyes and finally opened as the never-ending knocking turned from random beating to the sound of "We Will Rock You".

The sleepy boy made no point to warn the intruder that he was about to open the window, therefore as soon as he pulled it open Jason fell inside and onto the ground.

"Jason", he acknowledged. "You here to kill me?"

Jason stood back up and knocked the nonexistent dirt from his Red Hood costume. The floor was kept in clean conditions after all.

"Of course not. Why would you believe that I'd only ever visit for work." He trailed off as he looked up at his brother, the wrong one for that matter. "Timmy? You here? Did I go to the wrong house? I expected Dick." He giggled at his last sentence as he followed Tim all the way back to the bed.

"Dick is out of town, he asked me to take care of the house and keep an eye on the city." He fell face first into the bed. Jason didn't let himself get irritated by this behavior, he merely made Tim scoot over and fell down next to him.

"Fine, although I'm a bit offended he didn't ask me to help."

"He might start considering you if you wouldn't just come over to visit him to flee from the tabloid magazines. And if you stopped killing people, that might also be a reason."

"Your words, not mine. Can't you believe that Dick is important enough to me that I would come over just to see him? Evading paparazzi is only a bonus." Jason put his hands over his heart.

"Yeah, sure." Tim didn't hear the rest of what was said, he already dozed off again.

 

He was awakened by the smell of breakfast travelling into his room. Well, breakfast was used loosely in this context, actually it was more burned bread than anything else.

"I think I have figured out how the kitchen works", Jason greeted him, wearing some ugly old apron with a picture of a dog holding some sausages, god knows where he found it. He was currently presenting Tim the table full of probably everything Jason had found in the fridge. From an uncut cucumber to some chicken breasts that wasn't even grilled.

"I didn't know what you wanted to eat. But if you´re just fine with my toast, I also made some of those." Jason pointed at the small basket filled with two burned pieces of bread. "Sit down, have breakfast."

As soon as Jason took a bite of the bread himself he was more than willing to let Tim make the food, even though he merely made a coffee for himself and Jason stole a sip as he wasn't looking.

"We'll just eat some pizza later, I know how to make that. Do we have a microwave?"

Tim decided to make sure to take Jason out and eat somewhere in a restaurant or fast food chain.

 

Later Tim and Jason trailed down the street, both clothed in Dicks clothes. Jason had brought nothing but his Red Hood suit and some ketchup bag he had found in whatever pocket during breakfast, he had used it right away on his burned toast with burned fried egg, claiming that this would give it some taste. It didn't.

"What's the plan?", Tim asked. "Anything you want to do?"

"Relax, nothing more. I'm on vacation right now, can't you see by my loose walk?" Jason had his hands behind his head, walking slowly down the streets, following Tim's lead.

At first Tim tried to ignore him, but as Jason started shooting finger guns at all the passerby's, making girls giggle and guys turn around with irritated faces, Tim decided he had to put an end to this.

"There, a shop. Let's get ourselves some clothes of our own before we have to take Dick´s again tomorrow." The clothing he wore right now was a bit too big on him and hadn't been able to find a fitting belt, therefore he was forced to keep the jeans up after every second step.

Before Jason could argue, he was already pulled inside the store.

Tim skimmed through the jeans on display and chose two in his size. He hadn't brought any luggage to Dick´s house either since he had thought he could just steal one pair of loose trousers and do nothing but lounge on the couch in front of the TV for three days. Maybe he would have to visit the store once, he could do that in sweatpants. But now he could neither survive sitting on the couch for hours with Jason, neither could he go through the city looking like a clean-cut homeless person.

Tim put the clothes on and came back out of the cabin deciding to take both. He looked around left and right, but Jason was nowhere in sight. He contemplated searching him himself or going to some clerk and have his name called out like a lost child, but he didn't have to. A second later the curtain next to his cabin was pulled open, out came Jason. Dressed in white pants where one could zip open both legs from top to bottom and a tight fitting shirt exposing his midriff slightly.

"Any thoughts?", Jason twirled in front of the large mirror. "Because I think I look amazing." He bent down to open one of the zippers just as a young couple passed by to get into a cabin as well. "Marvel at my leg", he held the leg high and Tim shoved him back into the cabin at once.

"Change back, Jason, you are being embarrassing."

 

As they left the store, carrying only a bag with two jeans, nothing of the things that Jason had chosen, Tim went back to trying to ignore his big brother.

At least as long as he could.

"Look, Timbo, there's a Bat Burgers over there. Let's go get lunch." He tried to grab Tim’s hand, but he evaded before he got caught and followed on his own.

"Two Batburger, some Night-wings, Robin nuggets and two Bat-sodas, please." Jason ordered. "That's enough for us, right?" Now he turned to ask Tim. A little late, seeing as he already ordered, but Tim doubted that he would have taken anything else anyway.

They sat down on a table and started unpacking all the food, Jason started eating right away. "The Night-wings are amazing", he said while slurping his drink. "I bet they are Dick´s favorite. Right?"

"Sure", Tim replied and shoved a nugget in his mouth.

"You know, by now I have eaten absolutely everything that is on the menu at this fast food chain, except for Ivy salad." He ate a large chunk of his burger. "Do you think she would even approve of salad? I mean, salad is made of plants. You’re eating plants, so you're killing them. Is that in line with her philosophy?"

"Ask her yourself", Tim merely replied as he tried to drown himself in his drink.

"I´m sure that isn’t that easy", a man in the booth behind them turned around and leaned over the seats. "Sorry that I bust in like this, but I just happened to overhear the conversation and I have to admit, I asked myself the same thing before already", the man extended his hand. "My name is Daniel by the way."

As Tim made no effort to take the hand, Jason leaned across the table. "I'm Jason, that's Tim."

"Nice to meet you", Daniel said. "Going back to the topic at hand. Poison Ivy is like, real close to plants, right? If they are her best friends and she regards them as such, wouldn't that make it something like cannibalism if she ate them?"

"Interesting point", Jason ate a nugget with a serious expression. "But I don't think she regards plants as the same race, she isn't delusional after all."

"You sure? She is a regular at Arkham Asylum after all."

"Oh, so just because someone was at Arkham they're insane?", Jason answered, and Tim remembered that Jason himself once spend some time in the Asylum.

"It's a hospital for the legally insane. I mean, some of those are people dressing in their ridiculous costumes going out at night to steal and murder and kidnap. I'm thankful that the Asylum exists, at least it’s a place to keep the insane locked away where they belong. If one lands in Arkham, you know something's wrong with them. Otherwise they'd be going to a regular prison after all."

Tim could see Jason's features harden. He quickly swallowed the rest of his burger.

"And Ivy is one special case", Daniel went on. "I mean, no disrespect, she is hot and all, but she walks around looking like a plant. Talk about taking environmental activism to the next level, am I right?"

Tim saw Jason clenching his hands and he stood up, pulling Jason up as well. "It was nice meeting you, Daniel, but we still have some business to do. Please excuse us now and have a nice meal."

"Sure", Daniel waved. "Maybe we'll meet again, I do like having a chat about the crazy chicks. You know, on my ranking, Ivy would be third I think. Second place is definitely that Catwoman, here outfit is so hot. But no one tops my crazy queen, Harley Quinn. I mean, that body in such a costume? Normally I don't go for the crazy, but with her? I´d get hit with her hammer, am I right?" He still hadn't stopped talking as they were already about to leave. Tim had let go of Jason only for a second, but that had been long enough for his brother.

"Crazy's the new sexy", Daniel muttered to himself as he turned back to his food, but he had no time to take a bite as Jason had already grabbed his neck and pushed his face into the plate.

"You shouldn't talk about them like that", Jason pulled him back up, Daniel´s face now full of ketchup. "That's disrespectful", his fist collided with the man’s face.

"Jason", Tim pulled him back. "Stop that, you'll get us in trouble."

"Trouble is already here", Jason tried attacking Daniel again, and Tim felt his body tensing up to break free so he quickly pulled him a bit further.

The commotion had long since been noticed, a bulky server approached them, probably to kick them out. Just before he had reached them, Tim pulled harder and managed to get a struggling Jason outside.

"I'm sorry, we are leaving already. Please excuse our behavior", Tim was ushering Jason behind him as he apologized to the man that escorted them. "No need to call the police, we're gone."

"And you better don't come back either", the man just said and went back inside as they were far enough gone. Only now did Tim notice his empty hands, he had left the bag with his jeans behind.

He could only sigh and look back for a second, but they wouldn't let him back in, even if he said he only wanted to get his bag, so he decided to not even try.

"Bastard", Jason muttered as he lead the way, his mood went back up by the second. "Let's go and do something fun now", he looked around trying to find something to do, finally locking his eyes on a mall. "We will look around in there."

"Whatever", Tim’s thoughts were still with his jeans, it didn't even look like Jason had noticed that his bag was gone now.

They entered the mall and were greeted by a mass of people in front of them.

"Oh, nice, they are making an acrobatics show", Jason was quite a bit taller than Tim, the difference between 5'6 and 6'0.

"Nice." Tim could only see the backs of other people, so he pulled out his phone to distract himself.

"Wow, that was one hell of a backflip", Jason complimented and clapped just as the rest of the crowd erupted in cheers as well.

"I'll be back soon", Tim put down his phone and slowly backed away from the crowd, he wasn't too keen to stay in their middle as long as he could see nothing that happened.

He looked around outside, the sun was out and shone harshly on the street. Tim didn't want to stay in the sun, so he looked around for some shadow and finally disappeared into an alley on the side. No one was around in here, so he could simply sit down on some old crates and relax while scrolling through his phone. If Jason went to look for him he could just send a message.

For seven full minutes he had his privacy and silence, then another person decided to intrude in his little bubble of happiness. And then two other, followed by even more. Only now did Tim look up. He didn't know the man in front of him, but he still looked a little familiar.

"Can I help you?", Tim asked as the man didn't move away.

"You can. You see, Tom, we have a little problem."

Although it was the wrong name, Tim doubted that this man had just made a slightly too accurate guess as to how he was called. Tim tried to think harder, but he couldn't say that he remembered this man from anywhere. "What problem?"

"It seems your big bro has introduced his fists to my little brother. And, you see, I can't allow that to go by without any consequences. So, I'm here to repay the debt and introduce you, the little brother, to my fists. What do you say?"

That seemed like trouble. Tim hadn't set out to get into a fight, and it was him all alone versus a bunch of tall, muscular men. If he would beat them all up, and he could, no question, would that make them suspicious as to who he was? Sometimes, one had to take a beating in order to keep his secret identity. But Tim didn't want to have to deal with something like that. A headache came up.

He stood up and rubbed his temple. "Say, don't you think we could settle this like grown-ups? This was a fight between our brothers, do we really need to get dragged into that?", he opened his hands in a gesture to show that he didn't intend to hurt anyone, but Daniel´s brother didn't look for excuses, he looked for blood.

"Yeah", he crooked his head and showed a smile. "That sounds like a nice world that you're living in." Then his fist collided with Tim’s stomach.

Tim had seen it coming, technically he would have been able to avoid the punch, but he thought before he acted. If he jumped out of the way now it would be to obvious that Tim was far more capable of fighting than he let on.

The pain was there, but it wasn't overwhelming. Tim had had worse.

"Get me the pipe", the leader demanded and one of his goons came forward, passing the thing and taking a good look at the boy that was curled up in front of them.

"Wow", the goon said. "Never did I think I'd get the chance to beat up a famous boy."

Crap, he knew who he was.

"Famous?", the leader took the pipe, crooking an eyebrow. "Who is he supposed to be?"

Tim couldn't let himself get outed as a Wayne, so he shut the goon´s mouth before he could talk more. He kicked up his leg and hit the men in his belly, right as he opened his mouth.

"Oh, this one got some fire", the leader took a step back as the other was attacked, then he swung the pipe over his head. "That just means it's going to be even more fun."

He swung the metal down, Tim forced himself to not dodge by rolling out of the way, instead he settled for blocking his head and body by lifting his arms. The pipe came down hard on his bones, but it didn't break them.

"You just try and dodge me", the leader was enraged, lifted the pipe again and swung it go back down. This time Tim evaded the direct blow, but was still hit in the side. "Run, little rat. Try me."

Tim did, evading the blow again and striking against the man. He didn't use all his power, he would knock his opponent down if he would use all his force. So instead of breaking the leg upon impact, he just succeeded in making that man jump away, trying not to burden his leg and choosing to jump on the other instead.

"Tougher than you look, yeah? Go get him!", he extended his arm, pointing at the still bend over Tim in his corner.

Great, now he had to take all of them on at once, a little hurt and still having to pretend to be far weaker than he was.

He straightens himself, put up the hands and blocked the first three punches coming at him, the fourth in his side he had to take in exchange.

As he put one hand over the now hurting spot he looked up, locking eyes with the goons, one of which was now taking out some brass knuckles, the leader cackled to himself on the side. Tim had no way of getting away without getting a little more of the beating, but maybe he could get past all the men out of the alley and just run.

The metal on the man’s fist went out to collide with his face. As Tim ducked and evaded the first hit so that it only grazed his cheek someone else screamed out in pain instead. Behind the man that was currently doing the beating four others had stood, watching and waiting. Now it were three. All pairs of eyes turned the other direction, the next goon went down before he had managed to turn. This gave all of them the option to look at the newcomer. As the men fell, Jason appeared behind him, rolling his wrist and cracking his neck.

"Next one", he ordered and didn't wait for answers, instead punched the next man right in his face. He tried to block, but was far too slow, so he fell next to his fellow men. "Hey little brother", Jason looked past the falling man and waved.

Tim didn't bother to return the greeting, instead he used the fact that the man that was just hitting him had turned as well. He grabbed his head and slammed it against the brick wall of the alley, then kicked his knee into the others side and let him sink to the ground next to a pile of old sticks that someone had stored here. Tim couldn't resist picking up the longest of them and swirled it in his hand, twisting it in his hands and ramming it against the second man that had punched him. Sadly, his weapon of choice was old and broke upon impact, but it had served its purpose. Tim snatched the second broken piece and spun both sticks as he turned to look at the leader. The man had slowly backed away, but he couldn't run even if he wanted. His leg was still hurt.

Jason took down the last two goons by punching their heads against each other and then stepping carelessly over the passed-out body's, going so far as to jump off of them and landing next to Tim. He put his slightly bloody knuckles, not his blood, in his pockets and turned to inspect Tim’s cheek where the metal had hit him last.

"You really hurt my little brother there", Jason noted with a calm, deep voice.

"You", the leader cried out.

"You", Jason repeated his word with mocking eyes, then made a dramatic pause. "Who are you?", he finally asked.

"You're the one that hit my brother today."

"Well then go get your father as well and we'll make it a full set." Jason put a hand through his hair, then turned to Tim. "I do get to hit him, right?"

"Get in line", Tim replied, his patience was used up. He fastened his grip on the sticks and took a step closer. "Don't think you’re the only brother sticking up for his family", one half collided with the man´s cheek, the other with his side. Tim's hands held so much strength, the man blacked out from just that and fell to the ground. Tim carelessly tossed his now even more broken sticks on top of him and grasped Jason's arm to leave.

"Just a second", Jason bend down, slapping the unconscious man across the cheek, leaving behind a harsh, red imprint. "Now we can leave."

As they passed the entrance to the alley Jason bend down and picked up a black bag, passing it to Tim. "Sorry that it took me so long to go find you."

Tim stopped and opened the bag and was greeted by two brand new jeans, they strongly resembled the ones he had lost today. "Let's go home and have something delivered for dinner", Tim caught up with Jason again.

 

The next morning Tim wasn't awoken by a smell, but by a feeling. After he had to take some of the punches yesterday Jason had first tried to insist on going on patrol alone, but Tim wouldn't allow it. Probably because Jason had playfully turned the guns in his hands as he informed Tim of that idea. Jason still got them back earlier than usual, he barely gave Tim the chance to fight, he knocked the bad guys out before Tim could come close enough. "You need to rest", Jason always said, but near the end of the patrol Tim had had enough and locked Jason out of the store that was being robbed before his brother could come in and do all the work first. Of course, a lock would never keep Jason out for long. As Tim had taken out the bad guys and turned he was greeted by the sight of Red Hood trying how good he looked in the different kinds of jewelry he found on display. After that incident Jason didn't hold him back anymore, but they were already back at Dicks house half an hour later anyway.

The feeling that awoke Tim was that of slight pain in his side and someone swiping something on his cheek. He opened his eyes and Jason's face filled his vision, how he was bend down over him and applying the cream on the small cut on his cheek.

"Jason", Tim had really not wanted to deal with this so early on. "I have had so much worse injury's, this little cut will be gone by tomorrow."

"Damn right it will be, after all I took great care of it." Jason got off the bed and grabbed a cup from beside it.

"What's that?", Tim knew before he asked. Coffee.

He snatched the cup from Jason's hand and chucked it down, not caring that it was still a little hot.

Jason laughed. "Come get up." He threw some of Dicks trainings clothes on the bed. "No going out today, we'll hang ourselves in front of the TV and not move all day. How does that sound?"


	11. Pizza

One shouldn’t evaluate Peter´s life for him, because he loved his job. Some people might say that simply delivering pizzas could never fulfill his life and that he should get a real job, but frankly, Peter just didn’t want to. A lot of people avoided Gotham, thinking that putting even one foot in this crime ridden city would be the death of them, put Peter enjoyed getting around in his city so much that he never even considered to move.

Today was a lucky day for him again. He took the six pizzas and got out of the car, walking up the stairs of the impressive manor. He didn’t have to come here often, but he always enjoyed getting a call to deliver to this place.

He rang the bell, seconds later the butler opened. Peter knew of exactly one place in Gotham that still had a butler, and as much as he had come to like this man in the few times he saw him, he always hoped the other man himself would open the door for him.

“Six pizzas for Wayne”, Peter held out the cartons and the butler took them, put them on the counter next to the door and was about to get the money as Peter´s luck shot up to the sky.

“Ah, the food came”, Bruce Wayne himself appeared behind his butler and opened one of the cartons, smiling. “Thank you. How much is it?” Bruce grabbed his wallet and the butler stepped back to let his master pay.

“35 dollars, Mister Wayne”, with a shaking hand Peter handed him the bill.

“Here, take this”, the billionaire handed him a hundred dollars, not even hesitating a second.

Peter got out his wallet and wanted to give the change, but Bruce had already taken the pizzas and closed the door with a “Good bye”. He left Peter´s hand with the change hanging in the air and Peter had to pull himself together as to not accidently start giggling like a mad man as long as he was still in front of the house. He would keep it inside until he was back in his car. That’s why he loved coming to this house, the tip was unrivaled.

 

Delivering food in a city like Gotham didn’t always mean knocking on doors, no, every week there were some more or less weird ways he had to hand the product over. Today, Peter parked his car in an alley, stepping out with the bag filled with two burritos, then he took a look at the fire escape he was about to climb. With only one hand.

He pulled himself up on the roof thinking his friend Conner could f right off with that fitness center he always wanted Peter to visit with him, just doing his job was enough for the delivery man.

“Two burritos”, he announced panting as he got up and looked around. He was greeted by Red Hood, currently inspecting his guns as he waited on the edge of the building.

“Ah, finally”, the masked man turned and beckoned him to come closer, Peter complied and passed him the bag.

Red Hood tore it open, pushed up the mask to reveal his mouth and took a large bite. “Nice”, he said and patted the spot next to him. “I don’t have money on me right now, a wallet would make weird bumps in my costume. But next time you see Batman or Red Robin somewhere in town you can ask them to pay the bill”, he took the second burrito out and passed it into Peter´s hands. “Here, as a peace offering you get the second one.”

Peter looked at the food, then his car, then at the food again. “Alright, thank you”, he accepted, he deserved a pause. And if his chef asked where he had been this long he could just tell him he was in a compromising situation involving a man with guns, it wouldn’t be a lie. “So how was your night so far, Mister Red Hood?”, Peter asked to break the silence.

“Oh, not that eventful. Had a little running in with some new thugs earlier on. I know that they´re new, they thought I was a hero and trying to stop them or something and they attacked me. I proofed them wrong right away though.”

“So you stopped some thugs from doing crime today, that was nice of you.”

“Sure, although I did stop them with my guns.”

Peter decided to get the dialogue in a new direction. “And what’s planned for the rest of the night?”

“Actually not much, I´ll be out for another hour or so, then it´s time to go back home.”

“Yeah, my shift will end soon as well”, Peter munched on the rest of his burrito and was about to stand up, but Red Hood was faster.

“Hold this”, he pressed his nearly eaten burrito in Peter´s hand, the gun he had inspected earlier into his other, then dived off the building.

Peter hectically leaned further down, trying to see what he was doing. Red Hood landed next to Peter´s car on the ground, only now did he see the shadow at his car that was currently working on his tires.

Red Hood pulled the shadow up by the back of shirt and held him in the air, then carried him out of the alley and had him run away as he sat him back down on the street.

In record time the masked man climbed back up the building and Peter decided to not focus on the difference in time that it had cost both of them to get up. Peter had to do it while holding a bag after all, he told himself.

“Thank you”, Peter held out the food and the gun, trying not to focus too much on the fact that he had just held an actual gun in his hand.

“No problem, I have some experience with little street rats trying to steal some tires.” He munched down the rest of the food and holstered his weapons, then waved and jumped over to the next building.

Peter followed the man with his eyes, then picked up the bag and stuffed it in his pocket. No way he´d ever give up his job.

 

“Nice to see you, Red Robin”, Peter stepped out of the door and to the roof that he had to deliver to today. He had had a hard time explaining to the porter that he needed to use the elevator to deliver food to the roof, but in the end he managed anyway. Peter was good at his job.

Peter got a few steps closer, Red Robin turned around and so did the figure sitting next to him. “The Riddler?”, Peter asked surprised as he recognized the man.

“Everyone wants me, but when they have me they only give me away. What am I?”, the man crooked his head as he looked at him.

“I´ll get 12 dollars from you”, Peter put the pizzas down next to the two men.

Red Robin pulled out his wallet from god knows where and searched through it.

“Actually”, it had just come back into Peters mind. “Would you mind paying another 8 dollars?”

“Why?”, Red Robin hesitated as he got the money out.

“I delivered to Red Hood some time age and he told me to ask you or Batman to pay for him.”

“Typical”, Red Robin got out two more bills and pressed them into Peters hand. “If you see him again tell him to bring his own money, I´m not his bank.”

“A man had four sons, and each had a sister. How many children did the man have?”, Riddler reached out to take a pizza.

“I know that you have yet to do any bad deed tonight, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t push you down this building nonetheless”, Red Robin took the other pizza as he had paid and shot the Riddler an angry glare.

“If I may”, Peter was skeptical about the odd pair. “Why are you eating pizza with the Riddler anyway, Red Robin?”

“I suspect he has something planned for tonight, so I´d rather keep an eye on him.” Red Robin took a bite. “That’s some good pizza.”

“What belongs to you, yet other people use it more?”, Riddler turned to look at him.

“Ah, my name? I´m Peter”, he reached out to shake the Riddler’s hand, but only got a piece of pizza back. “Thanks?”, he looked at Red Robin before accepting, but the hero just shrugged and let them do. “Then I´ll take my leave now. Riddler, Red Robin”, he waved and took a bite.

“See you around.” “Farewell, Peter.”

As Peter opened the door to leave, some parts of the conversation still reached his ears.

“Riddle me this. If I drink, I die, but if I eat, I´m fine.”

“Edward, I swear, if you don’t stop with the riddles I´ll just deliver you to the GCPD right now, they´ll manage to dig up some dirt on you. Hey, wait, the answer is fire. Riddler, what have you planned.”

Peter left before anyone could involve him in this crazy stuff any longer.

 

His phone rang just as his car was being taken over by auto control and the windshield turned black, therefore he could take the call.

“Hello”, Peter leaned back in his seat, he needed to get an actual self-driving car.

“Do you know what date we have?”, a deep voice asked him.

“Ahm”, he took the phone from his ear and checked before answering. “October 14.”

“That’s right”, the deep voice said. “Columbus Day. What better day to blow up the governmental buildings than today?”

Oh, so he was talking to villain. Good, he was already suspecting that someone was trying to sell him something and he really didn’t want to deal with that right now. “Well, alright then. Why are you telling me this?”

“Batman keeps hanging up on me”, the voice was already less deep then before, now it sounded more natural. “But through my phenomenal information network I have learned that you are to deliver him a pizza.”

“Information network?”, were the phones at his work bugged or something?

“Alright, I overheard you as I ordered dinner. Happy now? I just need you to pass the phone to him.”

The car came to a stop and Peter got out, phone still in hand. “If you want me to”, he didn’t want to get involved in anything, so he would just play along, not make himself any enemys.

He looked around and found himself in a colossal cave stuffed with modern looking technology. Of course Batman’s base was epic.

“Pizza Hawaii?”, Peter called out, his voice echoed through the space.

“I´ll need you to come up”, a voice called from somewhere above, and Peter really didn’t mind climbing the Batcave.

As he finally managed to make his way up he was greeted by a masked red headed girl in front of him. “Thank you”, she took the pizza from his hands. “It would have taken longer for me to come down.” She was right, Peter noticed the wheelchair.

“It was no problem”, he made sure to suppress his heavy breathing from the exercise as he followed her to the money she had prepared on a table on the side.

“You still there?”, a voice called out and Peter remembered his phone that he had to put in his pocket as he came up. He took it back out.

“Yeah, still here. But there’s no Batman. Should I just pass you on anyway?”, Peter didn’t wait for the answer and offered the woman his phone. “It´s for you, I think he wants to blow up some building or something.”

The girl exchanged the money for the phone. “Who´s there?” Pause. “Oh, it´s you again, Calendar Man.” Pause. “Yes, we got your first call. And the message. And the second call. But listen, Julian, it´s a busy night, okay? We can´t give you attention right now, so sit tight and wait for a better day, okay?” Short pause. “Okay, yeah, I know, you´ll blow it up and all. But listen to this, on the 24 we have United Nations Day. How about blowing something up then?” Pause. “Okay, if you´re like this, I won´t talk to you. Get back to me in ten days and we´ll see.” She hung up without waiting for an answer and gave Peter his phone back. “If he calls again, just ignore him.”

“I´ll do everything you say, lady.”, Peter bowed a little and put the twenty dollars away, she wasn’t even waiting for change, just waved and rolled away with her pizza.

 

As Peter got out of the car he got right back in. He had done some questionable things in his life, but never gotten into the middle of a shoot-out. And he wasn’t about to either, at least he hoped. But then he took a look at the chicken wings waiting to be delivered and he sighed. If he would get shot, he would ask for double the price.

“Excuse me?”, he shouted before turning into the alley were the shots came from. They stopped for a second and he was brave enough to peek around the corner.

“What´s up, Peter. You´re a little earlier then I thought”, Red Hood turned to him, but still fired a new shot at whoever was on the other end of the alley.

“Sorry, had a lot of green today. Should I go drive around the street again?”

“No, it´s fine”, Red Hood ducked as shots came back from the other end.

“Oh, did the food come?”, Robin´s head stuck out behind some container, and so did a sword.

“Duck, Robin.”

“Where?”, Robin replied sarcastically.

“Very funny, but the conditions for coming was that you wouldn’t get hurt, wouldn’t kill unless necessary and would listen to everything I say. So get your head back down or no chicken wings for you.

“You´re not my mom”, Robin called but ducked anyway.

“Of course I´m not, or else there would be no anti-killing rule.” Red Hood turned back to face Peter. “You know what, it´s a little dangerous here right now. Just put the food down and leave.”

“And the money?”, Peter asked.

“Same as ever, go ask Batman or someone else, they´ll do it.”

Peter decided to end the conversation here as another bullet nearly grazed his cheek.

 

The GCPD turned their heads, looking after him with questions in their eyes, but Peter did his best to ignore them. This was by far not the weirdest place he had ever delivered to.

“Hello Commissioner”, he greeted and closed the door behind him.

“Who are you?”, the man inspected the logo on Peters clothes and the bag in his hand.

“I´m Peter”, he extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. So you´re waiting for Batman too?” They both turned to look at the symbol on the clouds.

“Him or maybe another strange bird. Someone always shows up”, the Commissioner replied, and just seconds later with a swoosh the new people appeared behind their backs.

“Oh, I told you that you were being slow today. Our food was faster”, Nightwing was the one to take the bag out of Peter´s hands.

“Me?”, Robin grabbed the bag and pulled his food out. “It takes you ages to get into that tight costume of yours.” He took another meal and passed it to the silent Batman next to him.

“You ordered food?”, Batman sounded skeptical but accepted it anyway.

“Had no dinner”, Robin opened his food. “We can just eat this on the way.”

“Hm.” Batman took a bite.

“Well then, if you´re done, we have an emergency here. There were some sightings of some strange things happening in Penguins territory, and…”, the Commissioner trailed off as he turned to look at Peter. “Do you plan on staying?”

“Well, you see, the money.” Peter replied calmly. “And actually, I saw Red Hood some time ago again and he asked me to tell you to even his bill again, Mister Batman, Sir. So that would be sixteen dollar and additional seven, if you will.”

“Here”, Batman passed a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change. And tell Red Hood to stop using me as his bank, he should be able to pay his own meals by now.”

“And tell him I said hello, he should come see me sometime”, Nightwing chimed in.

“Will do”, Peter pocketed the money. “See you all around.”

 

Peter drove through the bad neighborhoods far more often than other people would ever dare too, and today was no different. Delivering to some house in a run-down environment. He just had to be fast to not get his tires stolen while he went to the door. But today he didn’t even have to wait that long to get attacked, no, today they jumped on the road, two people with their gun and knifes.

“Give me all the money”, one of them waited in front of his hood, the other came around to pull the door open and put the knife on his throat.

Peter put up his hands. “No stress”, he reached for the money and was about to hand it over as red dust came up besides that mans face. He took one breath and fell over and to the ground.

“Be careful”, Poison Ivy took the robbers place in leaning into his car from the side, “You could get hurt.” The beautiful redhead reached out with her hand and put a red flower on Peters mirror. “No worries, it just smells nice. Take it as a gift since you delivered that nice food to me and Harley a week ago.”

“Just doing my job. But thank you anyway, it does smell nice.”

She waved, the disappeared into the night. Only seconds later a foot hit the second, obviously confused, man into his side, sending him off flying. His space was taken by Red Robin who recognized Peter immediately. “Hey, where did she run off to?”, he asked, but Peter just shrugged and feigned an innocent expression.

 

There was a certain giddiness in Peters walk as he got up the stairs at Wayne manor. He loved this place.

He rang the bell and only seconds later an entirely new face opened for him. “Food´s here”, the young man shouted inside and behind him an older one appeared.

“Ah, finally. If we won´t stuff Jason’s mouth soon he might just eat everything that Alfred has left for tomorrow, just like he did yesterday.”

“Oh please, it´s all your fault, Dick. You weren’t even supposed to be here, of course Alfred didn’t leave enough food if you show up here so suddenly. Don’t try putting the blame on me”, a third head appeared in the doorway, presumably Jason.

“Yeah, whatever”, the first boy wasn’t paying attention to the quarrel. “Where did I put my wallet?”

“Oh, food”, now a fourth child came, and Peter wondered how he had never actually met Bruce Wayne’s children up until now. He remembered seeing their faces in some magazines, but he was never one to keep up with the gossip.

“Don’t try and pretend that you would pay, Tim”, Bruce appeared after his youngest, petting his head while passing and making his way to Peter through all the kids on the threshold. “Here”, he gave a hundred dollars. “Keep the change.”

“With how much we ordered that’s only like fifty-dollar tip.” Jason leaned on Bruce’s shoulder, looking down into the wallet. “Is that all this poor man gets from you?”

“Oh”, Peter looked at the money. “It´s already a lot more then I get anywhere else. Well except from Batman that is. You guys are putting my future children through college, you know?”

“And now we´ll even put you through it”, Jason watched as Bruce pulled another fifty dollars and handed it to Peter. “See you around.” He reached past his father and pulled the door close. As their faces disappeared Peter could see the two youngest sparring in the background and the oldest doing a cartwheel up the stairs over a cat that sat there.

Peter put the second tip away as he got into his car and pulled out of the driveway. Never would he give up his job, nothing else could give him the satisfaction that this job gave him.


	12. Baking

Alfred didn’t go on holidays often, but from time to time he did get some time off. He was supposed to return in the evening and was already awaited eagerly although it was only just the middle of the day.

To welcome him back, Dick had decided to make use of the kitchen and bake a cake for him. He was promptly followed by his brothers who, all of a sudden, all had the unexplainable urge to help him.

Dick had believed this to maybe work out just one time for exactly three minutes, then he returned to the kitchen, his hands full with all the food they had bought to bake and followed by his two other brothers, and he saw Jason. He shouldn’t have left him to melt the chocolate while they were restocking everything they ate the last days.

“Jason”, Dick sighed as he put the groceries down. “Please tell me there’s a good reason that there is more chocolate on the ceiling then in the bowl.”

Jason didn’t even try and look guilty. “I was left alone far too long, so naturally this happened.”

“Fine”, Dick handed him a cloth. “Go climb the counter and wipe it away, we can’t let Alfred return to his sanctuary when it looks like this.” He opened the fridge for Damian who still held all the food in his arms he could carry. “Let´s put these away first.”

He had turned his back on Jason for merely thirty seconds, then he heard the younger one´s voice again. “Huh, this took an unexpected turn. Neat”, he mumbled, and Dick swirled around just in time to see Jason letting the hot chocolate drip from his knife that he used to scrape it from the ceiling into his mouth.

“Alright then”, Dick grabbed Jason’s legs and put him down on the floor gently. “How about you go wait in the dining room until we need help again.” Jason left with a shrug.

“You know this isn’t going to end well?”, Tim watched the way too obedient Jason leave.

“Lighten up, Tim. We´ll bake a cake now.” Dick turned on the radio.

 

Bruce entered the room, he knew that his sons were baking right now and was interested in their progress. He wasn’t really surprised to find Jason sitting on his own outside of the kitchen. Surely others would follow soon.

“Jason”, Bruce noticed his son´s hands. “Did I not tell you no guns in the dining room?”

“You said in the living room.”

Bruce snatched the gun from his hands and flicked it on a nearby shelf. “Still the same roof. Mine, that is. No guns.” He only needed to wait a second, then Jason had already pulled his second gun for inspection. At this moment Damian came out of the kitchen with slightly smoking hands and dark smears on his cheeks.

“No worries, father”, he said. “Dick already put out the fire.” He sat down next to Jason.

“Yeah, that’s reassuring”, Bruce´s eyes darted towards the kitchen, but he saw no smoke coming from it. Yet. He leaned down and tried to brush the dirt from Damian´s cheeks but gave up as they only got bigger. Instead, he refocused on Jason, taking the second gun as well and putting it next to the first. As soon as he turned back, Jason held a knife in his hands and presented it to his little brother.

“I call it `Neck Slits And Chill´, you like it?”

“He doesn’t”, Bruce grabbed the knife and stored it in his belt, his eyes not leaving Jason as he waited for him to pull out the next weapon from whatever pocket of his polo shirt or jeans. “Don’t teach him such sayings anyway”, Bruce added.

“Oh please, he murdered since the age of four, but these are things I can’t say to him?”

“The age of three, actually”, Damian corrected him.

“Don´t talk about killing this easily”, Bruce finally sat down.

“Nothing says brotherhood as much as talking about murder together.” Damian smiled.

“If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world remains the same”, Bruce wasn’t happy.

Jason put his head on his hands. “That’s why you don’t stop after one. I´m at like a hundred or whatever by now. I stopped counting. Actually someone made me compliment once saying everything and everyone I touched dies, one way or another. I don’t remember if that were his words exactly though since he was bleeding out while he said it.”

Damian was already not listening anymore, he turned in the direction of the kitchen. “Hey, Drake, wouldn’t you like to come over here and give Todd a friendly greeting handshake?”

Seconds later Tim came out of the kitchen. He didn’t look as disheveled as Damian had looked as he came. No, instead he looked rather relaxed.

“Dick told me to leave since all I was doing was eat his decoration and sit on the counter.” Tim grabbed a chair. “Please note, I certainly wasn’t coming ´cause I listen to the little brat.”

“And here I had hoped your little adventure in the woods would have gotten you to a little closer”, Bruce observed the scene. “You took such good care of each other after all.”

“How would you…”, Damian trailed off. “You had cameras in the cabin, right?”

“It is in possession of the Wayne family”, Damian´s and Tim’s expressions darkened at the same time. Bruce stood and quickly make his escape towards the kitchen. “I´ll just go check on Dick.”

 

Dick was just putting the cake in the oven as Bruce entered. “Smells nice”, Bruce said.

“Say that again in about twenty minutes”, Dick set the timer, then looked behind his behind. “I see you left the children on their own in a room filled with some nice dishes. You know, knifes and plates.”

“Yeah, maybe not the best idea”, Bruce grabbed a glass of water. “I´ll return in a second when their attention will be directed on a new topic.”

“Some tomfoolery is happening, I can sense it”, Dick got out of his white, stainless apron and was the first to leave. Bruce gave himself another minute before he followed.

 

Jason’s voice came his way as Bruce returned. “Did I do something illegal? I sure did. But was it fun though? Hell yeah. I don´t regret a thing.”

“And I won´t regret not asking”, Bruce noted as a overlooked his four sons sitting at the table.

“Listening to you two talk is honestly the most painful thing I´ve endured in my life”, Tim was already on his phone again.

Damian chuckled sarcastically. “If you´d like to level up your knowledge about pain endurance I´d advise you to look into a mirror, it might make you invincible.”

They both flew out of their stools, glaring at each other as they put their hands on the table. They were interrupted as Dick placed a board game strategically between the two. “Still eighteen minutes left, let’s have some nice and non-violent fun.”

Jason inspected the carton. “Game of life? I can tell you all who certainly won´t win that. Hit it, Dami”, he held out his hand, but Damian refused to give in and chose to ignore him. Not that Jason would mind, he simply high-fived himself instead.

Bruce sat down and watched as they unraveled the game. He remembered his conversation with Alfred before he had left. He told him to not be lonely without his company. They had both laughed at that, but watching his sons play with each other now, Bruce was sure Alfred had truly meant what he said, and Bruce felt a strange warm feeling as he realized.

He joined his laughing sons and decided to not even mention to his butler that he had overheard him calling all his children to come over to visit while he would be gone.


End file.
